


Search & Rescue

by lord_fodz



Series: Documentary: Memoirs of the first Galactic Heros [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 00:09:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1407721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lord_fodz/pseuds/lord_fodz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Reaper threat is destroyed, the galactic community is shattered. Hope is all that is left, thanks to the actions of a brave team, lead by one courageous man. This documentary tells the story of John Shepard, the man who gave us all a second, third, fourth and many more chances that nobody could count. Our Journey starts from the very moment that the brave commander destroyed the Reaper threat, and as the chapters go on in this saga, we reveal all that has happened since, how everything unfolded. For the first time, we have John Shepards full story, only here at A.N.N network.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Search & Rescue

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first time writing anything in all my life, I wanted to write it because I felt that I needed more Shepard/Kaidan after the end of the series, even with the EC. I tried to fill as many holes as I could, and went a little far with my imagination. 
> 
> The first Chapter is named Search and rescue, it tells a story from Kaidan's first person perspective, and it takes place right at the very end of the battle for earth. It explores the efforts put in place to recover the body of Shepard and takes a look at some of the history between the two. 
> 
> If people do like the first chapter, I will publish a second, and third and so on.
> 
> Anyways, go easy on me, it is my first time, and please be nice. 
> 
> Enjoy.

Chapter 1: Search & Rescue

 

 

His fingers moved through my hair, his icy blue eyes looked deep into my soul. For a second, everything around us seemed to fade away, the roar of the battlefield vanished, the sound of bullets was nothing more than faded beats, the raging fires were but small candle lights flickering in the wind, all that mattered was me and him. His words came out with that voice that could move mountains inside me, “No matter what happens Kaidan, Know that I love you, always”. 

I couldn’t…….. I just couldn’t handle his words. In one millisecond, in that splinter of time, I was both alive and dead, ecstatic and devastated, I was here on the battlefield, and I was back in his arms in our bed. My entire life with John Shepard flashed before my eyes, those mornings I woke up sensing his heart beating through his chest, feeling his stormy blue eyes looking at me, I always felt his passionate gaze even before I opened my eyes. That first date we went on as an official couple, he looked so cute acting all messed up and nervous; and later how this wreck of a man turned into the most passionate yet fierce lover ever. We didn’t have a lot of time together, maybe a month, or 2 at most, but during my time with John, I was alive again, I was a new born of 34 years. Nothing ever felt like this, and nothing will ever again. 

With all the courage I could summon I told him “I love you”, though it came out nothing more than a faint whisper, his eyes told me that he knew. And that was it, he ordered Joker to go. I could see him turning away running towards the scene, but I couldn’t let him go. “NOOOO……..SHEPARD, NOOOOOOO”. I screamed and tried to run towards him, mindful not the fact that someone had both arms around me to restrain me from doing just that. “NOOOOOOO” I screamed again with tears in my eyes as the bay doors started to close. 

I ran towards the elevator screaming to Joker “Joker this is Kaidan, open the damn bay doors Joker, JOKER, I am ordering you back…….open the god damn door Joker, I am not kidding”. As the elevator doors opened, I rushed in, screaming in the comm “Joker take us back….. You’re killing him for heavens sake”. But the silence continued. The elevator doors opened on the third floor. As fast as humanly possible, I ran to the port side deck window. “SHEPARD, SHEPARD” I pounced and screamed through the glass hoping that by some miracle he could see and hear me through that small window that was at least a few thousand feet away from him. I could still see him though, and as he always did, he was putting other people’s safety before his, evacuating as many people as he could with no regard to his own life. But what about mine, I know how selfish that must have been, but all I could think of was “What about me Shepard…What about me”. In mere seconds, my worst nightmare, my deepest fear and my greatest torment of all materialized all at the same time, a red beam came down from the Reaper, struck my heart and shattered it into a million pieces, through that window, I saw the death of my soul. 

No, this can’t be, it couldn’t, I must be in a dream, yes I will wake up soon in Shepard’s arms. Anything, anything but believing that I just saw John’s death. Falling to the ground, I was in a trance. I could hear and see everything around me as if it was all a dream. The last thing I remember was hearing the sonic boom of exiting orbit, then it all went dark.

Next thing I heard was Joker’s voice on the comm “hold on everybody, this is going to be a close one” I didn't understand what he meant, but I could feel the shudder of the FTL jump, “Hold on” Joker screamed again. Out the window, I could see the faint blue lights of the field, suddenly, a bright red wave hit like a giant tsunami, the Normandy’s systems were shutting down fast. The last thing I remember before blacking out again was EDI’s voice “manual control restored”.

 

The next thing I knew, I woke up in Med bay. To my left, I could see Liara and Garrus sitting on a med bed, Liara was crying and Garrus was trying to calm her down. To the right, Dr. Chakawas was busy fidgeting with her omni-tool over the edge of my bed. I raised my head and asked in a faint voice “What…What happened”, even though my memory was getting back to me, I wanted them to tell me that it was all a dream, that all I have experienced was nothing more than a cruel manifestation of my darkest nightmare, It was clear that only Karen heard me, she immediately turned to the others and said “he’s awake”, then she looked at me smiling and said “you gave us quite a scare there major, but you’re fine now”. Looking at Liara, I couldn’t help but wonder why she was crying, then it hit like a freight train “Where’s Shepard, is he alright, Tell me he’s alright.” Liara couldn't control herself as more tears came down, she moved towards me, leaned in and hugged me so tightly, “I am so sorry Kaidan", her words meant nothing to me, I could sense tear drops on my cheeks, but I couldn't feel anything, “but he promised, what do you mean your sorry, he promi…he pr…” I couldn't continue the thought as my breath was drawn out of me, I was frozen in time and space. At that point, Karen flicked her omni-tool and immediately I felt myself drowning in a sea of darkness. 

I woke later feeling weird, I knew what happened, but I was strangely in control. Karen came over to my bed and in her usual caring voice asked about my condition, “What do you think?” I lashed back in the most harsh of tones. Luckily she didn't take offense to that. “When can I get out of here?”, She looked at me with concern and said “Major, physically there’s nothing wrong with you”, I stared at her, she must have seen the look of confusion on my face when she said “but I would like to keep you here under observation, your psych is not well right now and that may have…”, I interrupted her words with a defiant hand, “Dr. am I ok or not”, “Yes Major, you’re ok, but…”. I pulled myself up and immediately started for the door, Karin came after me “Kaidan, you need to rest”, “later” was all I said.

I wasn’t walking, I wasn’t running, heck, I don’t know how I got to flight deck. Joker certainly made no attempt to hide his surprise at my sight. “hey Major, didn’t think the doc will let you out so soon”, ignoring his comment I looked out the window panes, trying to make sense of where we were or what our situation was. I asked “whats our status Joker?”.” Uhh, where did we lose you?”, I gave him the coldest look I could muster and answered “when you ignored my order”. His face blushed momentarily “Yeah, was hoping you forgot that, ok so here is what happened, we got to orbit to join the fight with the rest of the fleet, and as soon as we did, the citadel started doing some weird shit”, at this moment my heart skipped a beat, I gazed off into the blackness outside the pane and thought maybe, just maybe…… Anyways, Joker continued “a red stream of energy moved through the wards’ conduits to the presidium, feeding into the Crucible. Finally the Crucible released a massive wave of energy taking out the Reapers in its path. Admiral Hackett ordered the fleet to jump to the rendezvous point, but I don’t think any ship had time to, I mean we are the fastest and we couldn’t even make it to the relay in time, which is weird because you’d think that a ship with FTL drives would ……”, I immediately returned my gaze to him and said “Joker, focus”, he rubbed his hand on the back of his neck and smirked “Yeah right, sorry. Anyways the wave beat us to the relay and took it out, it also fried our FTL couplings. Now, as Admiral Hackett ordered, we are on our way to meet the surviving fleet at the old site of the Arcturus Station, we managed to change the FTL couplings and should be ready to head out in an hour or so”, I looked at the flight deck’s side window again, with anguish in my tone I asked him “how long have I been out”, “roughly 8 hours Major”. The gears in my head started to turn again, I looked at Joker and said “Joker, Belay Hackett’s order, plot a course to earth, get us there asap”, with a puzzled look on his face he said “but major, the Admiral was very clear in his…”, “I’ll take care of the admiral, you do as the ranking officer tells you too, oh and Joker”, with a gulp he answered me, knowing what I am about to say to him, “if you ever disobey or disregard an order I give you again, having legs would be the least of your worries”, he nodded nervously as if I was holding a shotgun to his head, of course I hadn’t realized that my biotics were powering up involuntarily, and a blue haze was surrounding me.

As I made my way to the comm room, Liara and Garrus appeared, running out of the elevator, followed by officer Traynor. Within seconds Liara’s hands were around me “Thank the goddess you’re alright Kaidan”. Garrus looked at me with his stern features “you gave us quite a scare Major”. Looking at them, for the first time it started to weigh in on my heart, but no, I must be strong for Shepard. “Relax, both of you, I am fine”, then without considering their followup, I looked at Traynor “Officer, get me Admiral Hackett on Vidcom now”. 

I left Liara and Garrus and ran to the Comm room, I started thinking about how to convince Hackett of my request. Honestly, I didn’t care what his response would be, I am not backing down. The seconds that followed were brutal, I could feel my heart pumping excessively and my breath racing out. Finally, Traynor’s voice came through the comm “Admiral Hackett is on Vidcom sir”. I straightened my self, took a deep breath, hoping the air might provide any sort of relief, then I opened the connection. 

“Major, I am so glad you made it, we were worried that the Normandy got caught in the wave of destruction” Hackett said with his usual cool tone,

“We are fine sir, Joker managed to pull us out alive”

“Thank god, ok, rendezvous with us in the Arcturus system to plan our next steps Major”

“Sir, I requested this comm to inform you that I have ordered the Normandy back to Earth”

The Admiral was quiet for a moment, “Why” was the only thing that he said.

“Sir, I am going back to look for Commander Shepard, and with your permission, I would like to have a search and rescue team on the ground to help me”

Again, the Admiral’s silence was all I got, it was clear he was struggling with what to say next. “Major, I know that you and the commander were…”

I cut him off immediately, “Sir, with all due respect, regardless of my personal situation with Commander Shepard, We owe him this much at the very least”

“Son, I am not denying that what Shepard did wasn't short of a miracle, but I am not sure that devoting resources for a wild goose chase is the best course, especially now when we can’t spare ……”

I exploded, something came over me, it was an eruption of anger, sorrow, desperation, hope, frustration and probably more labels that I can’t even remember. I interrupted the Admiral’s sentence “Sir, I am going to earth to find the man who saved our ass, and no offense sir, your ass too, in fact the whole galaxy’s ass. If he’s alive sir, he’s running out of time, and I will not rest till I find him, alive or dead, we owe him this.”

Hackett seemed annoyed by my tone, but he understood what I meant. With an uncomfortable look he said “And how do you suppose we do that Major, we don’t even know if he made it to the Citadel, if he made it out, or if his body is still there. Heck the Citadel was destroyed, his body could be floating in space as we speak”, his words were carefully chosen, they were spoken in an authoritative tone that was meant to discourage my path. 

Wait, the Citadel was destroyed, I didn’t know that, Joker failed to mention this small piece of information….My eyes started to tear up again as the last hope I had was slipping out of my hands. All I had was maybe he somehow made it to the Citadel and he was safe there from the destruction on earth. Still, I was not going to give up.

“Sir, as you probably know, Shepard had a cerberus modified N7 defender armor. As part of the upgrades, Cerberus added several shield packs and a stasis mod”

Hackett’s eyes narrowed down to mine, “A stasis mod you say”

“Yes sir, in danger, the suit’s VI can raise its shields and put the wearer in a stasis field to protect him. Shepard told me that after Cerberus brought him back from the Normandy crash, they modified the suit in a way that will allow him to survive should a similar situation happen again, kind of an insurance if you will”

Hackett looked up, he was pursing his lips, clearly calculating this new data “Even if he managed to escape the explosion, how do you plan on finding him Major, the debris field from the explosion is huge, there is no way you’ll be able to cover this entire area in time”

Again, the strands of hope seemed to get finer, and finer, I could feel them slowly fading away. Hackett was right, even if Shepard escaped the Citadel and the Suit’s VI managed to bring the Fail safes online, at most, the shields and Stasis field will sustain him for a few days, a week tops if he fell to earth and the shield was neither required nor taxed. My head slowly slipped back into the black void, this time all I could see was John’s blue eyes, those beautiful sea of emotions that were so uncharacteristically obvious on his dark skin. In my mind, I heard his last words to me “I will love you, always”. I didn't realize that several seconds had passed and Hackett was getting a little impatient, but suddenly, it popped up “dog-tags”.

Hackett looked confused “Excuse me”

“Dog-tags sir, before the attack I gave Shepard my tags and he gave me his”

Looking even more confused, Hackett asked “So, you exchanged tags”

I looked at him with a glint of hope in my eye. “Sir, the tags that Shepard had weren't standard tags, they were exposed to a very specific wave of radiation, part of a new Spectre prototype program established by Citadel scientist, each Spectre was to receive a unique radiation signature to a personal item of his, in an event like this, the spectre’s body could be located more quickly.”

For the first time during this conversation, Hackett finally looked hopeful, “Are you telling me that if we scan for that radiation signal, we can find your tags and Shepard”

“Sir if even a fraction of the tags exists, we can find them”

Hackett took a deep breath, thinking over all the data he had, he finally said “all right Major, I will grant your request, if you think you could find the commander, I won’t stop you”

“Thank you sir”, I shot back with suppressed delight. 

“But I can’t spare any more resources now to aid the search, the only thing you can do is utilize any teams you find on Earth”

With a little bit of desperation, I replied “That will be fine Sir”

“And Major”

“Yes Sir”

“Bring him home”

“Will do Sir”

“Good luck Major, and Godspeed, Hackett out”.

I did it, the smallest of victories, but its a start. Today seemed like a lucky day, reapers were destroyed, parts of the fleet survived, and most importantly, the Normandy survived, its captain must have too. “Joker, we got our clearance, head to earth”, over the comm came Joker’s surprised voice “plotting course now, Commander”. A sea of emotions suddenly came over me, I wanted to scream back that the Commander of this ship, the Commander of the Normandy will forever be John Shepard, and no one else, but I knew that this was not the time for it. Summoning back my soldier facade, “EDI, tell everyone to gather in the war room, We’re getting our commander back”. A few seconds of silence went by, finally EDI’s voice came through the comm “Yes Commander”. While the team was gathering, I went up to Shepard’s quarters…our quarters. As soon as I walked in I knew it was a mistake, I could smell him in the room, the photo of our first presidium walk was on his desk, I remembered this day so vividly, as if it was yesterday. 

That day, I walked into Shepard’s apartment, our apartment, angry as hell at the recent report on the Normandy’s retrofit progress. We were supposed to head back out that day to strike a deal with the Quarians, but at this rate, it would take several days before we can even get the FTLs back online. As I reached the top of the staircase, I looked over, and there he was. John was sitting in a chair, shirtless with sweat pants on, a beer in one hand, a data pad in the other, and headphones in his ears. Looking at him, I couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, I couldn’t even breathe, I didn't want to miss a second of this view, I wanted to take it all in. We were in the midst of a galactic extinction, and this man could still somehow manage to take a few moments to sit back and relax, all while handling everything from a small data pad. He took a sip of his beer, put down the bottle and data pad, closed his eyes and played the air drums, apparently he was listening to something he enjoyed. I loved how he would play so passionately, he would bite his lower lip and shake his head as if he was there, playing with the band. A few seconds later he opened his eyes, and noticed me standing there looking at him with amazement, and with a loss for words. He shot me this boyish cute smile that could melt away my heart in an instant. Removing his headphones, he looked at me with that continued smile and said “Kai”, that was the playful name he used to call me whenever we were out of service, while its not an indicative or creative name, but every time I heard him say it, in my heart of hearts, I knew everything was going to be fine, just as long as I can hear him call me that. I replied back “huh..”, he smiled again and asked “Whats going on with you?”, his tone was so playful and pure that I immediately felt as if my entire world was calm, he always did that to me, he could tame a hurricane inside me with a few simple words. “Uhm, Did you check the Docking bay report, the damned tech team didn't even finish work on the FTL drive yet, I was hoping we can get to Rannoch by end of day, or at the very latest, tomorrow”. My eyes met his again, he still had this repressed smile on his face, a smile that made anything I say seem like nothing more than a small glitch. I swear, if I was standing there telling him that a reaper had just cut the Normandy in half and burned its crew, his look would still make it seem like an issue EDI can fix in a heart beat. “You look cute when you’re worried Major”. I don’t know why, but I expected something along those lines from him, thats Shepard for you, in front of people, he is this tough, serious military type that everyone respects, consults and even admires, but underneath all this is someone much much more than that. I looked back at him with a stern look and said “Shepard be serious, we are in the middle of a war and every second we lose our chances weaken”. He looked to me seriously this time “Ok Major Alenko, I already saw the reports and talked to the tech team, we will have FTL tomorrow at the most, and the rest of the work will be completed on the journey to Rannoch”, he tilted his head and continued his serious gaze “Now can I take your serious ass out for a date, or do we need to discuss the security crisis on Omega too”. I laughed instinctively, I couldn’t help it, here we are, in the middle of all these issues, and all he wants to do is to go out with me, alone, his love is a stronger force than anything in this known universe, how can I resist it. “hmm. the blue sons are really messing things up over there, maybe we should talk about…”. “Major”, he interrupted “get your ass ready for our date”, I looked at him with a smile “is that an order sir”. His face turned serious again “you bet your ass it is”.

As I went into the bathroom to shower and change for our date, John came after me, in his usual sly manner, to sneak a peak as I undressed and walked into the water. He knew that I saw him, but still, he liked to make it seem as if he was sneaking. Anyways, as I finished washing up, I shouted out to him “So where are we going, the strip, Purgatory, apollo’s”, he screamed back “Neither, its a surprise, now get your ass ready in ten, or I will have to punish you major”. I laughed back “is that a promise commander”. Anyways, I got dressed and ready, then, as I walked down the stairs, I could see John by the kitchen counter, wearing his casual jeans and N7 leather Jacket. He had a large black bag next to him. As I walked over I looked at the bag and asked “Whats in the “, he grabbed me immediately and kissed me. “you ask too many questions, you know that right”, “fine, no questions, surprise, blah blah blah”. “you look so hot in those pants, I have half a mind to rip them off here and now”, I replied “Well, why don’t you”, he looked up as if he was thinking of a complicated math problem “hmm tempting, wait you’re not trying to get out of this date are you?”. Busted, as I tried to look back innocently at him, my eyes deceived me, he could read me in a heartbeat, “you know I hate surprises Shepard”. He put his arms around “Kai, I promise, you’ll love it”.

We walked down the strip, holding hands, it was a new feeling for me, but a wonderful one, I loved how his thumb would always be moving back and forth against my hand, so playful and exciting, so Shepard. We got to the transport vehicles, and got a car out. Shepard took manual control of the car, he really didn't want me to know where we were going, I never saw him so eager to keep something before, obviously he wanted to surprise me and whatever it was, I was sure I was going to love it, as long as it was with him. We came to a stop at a building that resembled the holo stage; a place where dignitaries can simulate their home planets and plan a party accordingly. As we got out, I couldn’t keep my peace “Shepard, whats this, whats going on, What are we doing here”. he reached out his hand “Kai lets go”. As we walked in, the Volus behind the reception gave a nod to Shepard and opened the door. 

As I walked into the room, my breath was taken away. The large hall was simulating a view over the English bay in Vancouver, I remembered telling him about how much I loved it when I was at my parents house, but I didn't think he would remember that. The grass felt so real under my feet, the wind blew a faint breeze on my face that held the smell of the bay. Even in the distance, I could see the multicolored trees that laced the bay, dancing in the wind so elegantly. I was speechless, I couldn’t believe he remembered. While I was in shock, he managed to open the bag and call up a VI to setup a picnic area for us. He came close to me, took me in his arms and softly spoke “Surprise Major Alenko”, a small tear rolled down my cheek as I silently nodded, a second later I turned, grabbed and kissed him. 

The next few hours flew by, I talked about my memories here, the holes I would dig up just to set up traps for the wandering crabs and I even showed him where I was when I got bit by one. John also talked about his childhood memories with his parents, though most of them involved colonies and space, there were some that he obviously cherished. After we were done eating, the VI cleaned up as John and I went for a walk on the beach, or the sandy part of the bay. John had another surprise, he had programmed the holo room to display a sunset, we both stood there, I was in his arms, feeling his warm breath on my skin, and watching one of the most beautiful and most romantic scenes in humanity’s history. As the Sun faded, I turned around, looked into his eyes with the greatest of affection, It was this moment, this exact moment that I knew my life would never be the same again, John Shepard has changed my life forever, and I could not be happier. This was the moment I knew that I loved him, and that my heart was his forever. We shared a very passionate kiss, I think even our longest, it would have lasted longer if the VI didn’t interrupt us with a quick “Smile and snap”. 

As I came back to the present, I noticed that that day’s photo was the one on John’s desk. My head had only one thought, “you god damn bastard, how could you do this to me, how could you leave me, not now, not after all we’ve been through”. I walked into the Bathroom, splashed some water on my face and tried to clear my head. It took a lot of will power to keep myself from falling apart. It took me a few minutes to summon back the courage, to demolish all those dark forces that were trying to drag me down, and another few to go over the plan in my head. Looking in the bathroom mirror, I could see myself being dragged back into a very dark place, a place were my deepest fears took over, a place where hope can’t exist. EDI’s voice snapped me right back “The Team is assembled in the War room Commander”, I dried my face quickly and replied “I am on my way EDI”.

As I walked into the War room, I could see that everyone in the room shared a single look, a mix of pity, desperation and concern. I stood by the console and punched in a few commands, then looked back at the team “Ok people, time to get our Commander back”. Everyone kept their eyes averted from mine, none wanted to break my heart with their gaze. I felt everyone’s pain and struggle, so I spoke “Look, I know what you’re thinking, I know how this must seem to all of you, you’re thinking that I must be chasing a dream, a ghost that even I can’t hope to exist, that I am out of my mind to go after him, or that I am in denial and trying to hold on to anything. But we are talking about Shepard here, lets not forget that he survived worse odds than this, more importantly, lets not forget that he’s the man that gave us our lives back”. I looked around the room to see who was present, I started with the closest member to me “Miranda, who helped you get your sister back from your father, even though he had no obligation to do so”, she quietly whispered “Shepard”. I could see that a tear was screaming to get out of her face, but decided otherwise. I continued “Kasumi, who went with you through hell to retrieve your lovers gray box, and Jack, who busted you out of prison and helped you get over your past. Samara, who helped you with Morinth, and stopped you from killing yourself at the monastery. Wrex, we both know that the genophage would not have been cured if Shepard hadn’t intervened. EDI, Shepard trusted you from day one, he allowed you to keep EVA’s body even though many crew members didn't like the idea”. I could see that a wave of emotion was swiping through the crew, I knew I had them sold at this point, but something in me pushed to continue, “Garrus, Liara and Tali, need I say more. No one respected, appreciated or loved you more than Shepard did, he stood by you whenever you needed him, don’t you all think we owe him this much, Even if he’s…”, I can’t say it, god damn it, I can’t. In one swift motion all the people nodded and screamed “Yes”, saving me from another breakdown. 

“Ok then, here is the plan, and Joker listen in on this”, 

“Yes Commander” Joker replied back. 

“Ok, we can safely assume that Shepard was the person responsible for the Crucible’s discharge, that puts him on the Citadel at zero hour.”

Everyone seemed to agree, “So, the citadel was destroyed by the force of the discharge, meaning that Shepard is either on the station, or whats left of it, in space or fell down to the planet with the debris”

EDI interjected “it is logical to assume that his best survival option would be to leave the station and make it to the planet”

But Vega pointed out “Wouldn’t the force of re-entry kill him if he tries to make it to earth, or his oxygen run out if he is floating in space”

I smiled a little, revealing the first clue of the plan, “Not really, Shepard’s suit had two extra shield emitters and a stasis mod.”

Tali was the interruptor now, “Wait wait wait, if he had extra shielding and a stasis unit, he could survive for some time in space with his shields and stasis field up, or he could make his way to earth and survive even longer in stasis, provided he survives re-entry”

“Exactly”, I said hopeful they got the idea, “and if I know John, he would want to make it back to earth, even if he had no chance of survival, he would rather die on solid ground than in space”.

EDI came in this time “Commander, based on my last readings of Commander Shepard’s suit, the commander has at most 125 hours, 34 minutes and 12 seconds of power if the suit’s VI conserved energy and only kept the stasis field”

Liara, looking as worried as always, said “but even with an entire search team, we couldn’t possibly cover the debris field in time, and if his stasis field drop, he could die from injuries sustained from battle”

“Right, so we need a narrower search field” As I finished my thought, a shudder came through, joker’s voice confirmed my hope “Commander we’ve reached earth’s orbit”

“Great timing Joker, Ok, position the Normandy near the Citadel’s last known location”. 

“Yes Commander, should take us roughly 2 minutes or so to make it there”

I turned to EDI, “EDI, run a surface scan on the debris field and show us the area on the holo”  
An image of earth appeared, and a large red circle centered around London, confirming my worst fear, the debris field was spread over a significant area, not only land, but also sea.

As I tried to compile the new data, I immediately went back to Joker “Joker, get us over London”

“Commander, you want me to break into the atmosphere”, Joker asked with a hint of surprise.

“Is there a problem with that”

“No sir, its just that the Normandy has been through a lot, and I am worried that she might not make it through a re-entry and exit”. 

Looking around “EDI, whats your thoughts”

“Joker is right, however, I do believe that I can safely manage our Kinetic barriers to hold under the pressure of re-entry, doing so would guarantee our exit”

“Fine do it, and as soon as we are in close proximity, run a scan to identify this radiation signature”, I activated my omni-tool and transmitted my own Dog-Tag radiation signature to the Ship’s computer. 

Miranda looked at the orange glow on my hand, “Whats that”,

“Its the signature from my tags”

A confusing look was shared by all, I explained “as some of you know, the Spectre office recently launched a program that would subject a personal item to a unique radiation signature, the basic idea is that in situations like these, the wearer could be located immediately instead of a long and exhaustive search, if a spec of the object remains, the radiation signal could be traced”

I thought that this was a good enough explanation, but jack shot back “and why the fuck would we search for your tags”

Oh right, I forgot to tell them this part, “Before the final battle broke, Shepard and I exchanged tags, I gave him mine and told him that I wanted them back when this is all over”

“Wait so we can trace your tags and find Shepard” Kasumi added.

“Exactly”, I gleamed back. 

Tali jumped off, excited as always when she had a task in mind “I can modify the sensors to emit a wider omni beam, wait even better, If we release a shuttle in orbit, I can reprogram the shuttle’s sensors to search for the signature, remotely the shuttle can search space faster and deeper”

“How long will it take you to complete this” I asked her,

“A Half hour tops with the Shuttle, ten to twenty minutes with the ship’s sensors” She shot back.

“Fine go, EDI give Tali all the help she needs” I said with a voice of authority. It kind of reminded me of Shepard. 

“Ok for the rest, EDI do we have preliminary scan results yet”, I asked hopefully. 

“One moment Commander”, I waited impatiently, hoping that the results came back with a positive match, or at least a small area.

“Commander, the results are back, I am displaying them on the Holo”

As soon as she finished, about ten small yellow flags appeared within the debris field, ten, I thought they were scattered but its doable. I started to think of team assignments, when more yellow flags popped up all over the debris field. Twenty, Thirty, Fifty, Eighty…..God. “EDI I asked a scan for a specific signature not all radiating surfaces”. 

“I realize that commander, however, due to the severity of the situation on the surface, it is impossible for the sensors to distinguish between the different signatures at the specific level you requested, I was only able to distinguish the signature by source, these appear to be a match to citadel generated signatures”

Frustrated by the news, I called back to EDI “ok how many pings do we have”

“At current scans, we have approximately 1,243 matches, that’s excluding anything within hot radiation zones”

“Holy Crap EDI, How is this narrowing for us” I thought for a second, “Ok, Listen up EDI, I want you to group all those pings into perimeters of walking distance for a three person group”.

“Analyzing……Done”

The results appeared to be a little more manageable, “Whats our count now EDI”

“Including all possible locations, we have a total of 267 zones”. 

Quickly doing the math, Looking around, we have me, Miranda, Jack, Samara, Liara, Garrus, Wrex, Grunt and Kasumi. Ok thats three groups of three, lets assume that Cortez, Vega and Adams will pilot the Shuttles. I turned back to EDI “Ok group these zones into 3”.

“Done, if separated equally, each team should inspect 89 zones, however because of the proximity of some groups to others, some will have a larger share than others….Analyzing”

“Ok, Samara, Grunt and Kasumi, you’re team 1, Jack, Miranda and Wrex, you’re team 2, and Liara and Garrus you are with me. Now if any of the teams find survivors, add them to the search, if any need help send their coordinates back to the Normandy and move on, we are running out of time people and every second counts.”  
Jack seemed a bit uncomfortable working with Miranda, I could have sworn I saw her mumbling “bitch” under her breath, Kasumi also looked worried about working with a Justicar, I ignored their looks and finally said “Ok everyone, gear up, let’s bring him back”.

As the teams walked into the shuttle deck, we realized the first problem, the Normandy had only 2 shuttles, as James ruined one on Mars, and one was being retrofitted for space scan by Tali, which meant we have only one left. 

Before I could dive into my analyzing state, Cortez came up to me in a hurried stride, “Sir, we’re done”, 

I looked at him with a puzzled expression, “What are you talking about”, 

he realized he never actually told me his plan before, he took a deep breath and spilled “Sir, as you know the Mako and hammerhead were being retrofitted with new shield and energy modulators”

“Yes, I am aware of that” I replied impatiently. 

“Well, Commander Shepard ordered both vehicles back to the Normandy before we left the Citadel the last time”

“What, Shepard moved the vehicles back, I thought they would take weeks to complete the mods, why would he do that”, I asked in complete amazement at the news.

“Sir the Commander ordered me and Vega to work on finishing the mods en route, we didn't need to have all systems working, just enough to get those vehicles back in action.”

“And you’re telling me now that we have a shuttle, a mako and a hammerhead, Cortez is that what you are saying” I repeated to make sure of this fact.

“Yes sir”

In my mind, I couldn’t say anything but Hallelujah, I closed my eyes for a second, seeing his blue eyes, his beautiful face appeared, and all I could say was thank you Shepard, even now you’re still guiding me.

“Ok then, EDI, can you analyze a best usage plan for each zone”.

“Major, Team Samara, Kasumi and Grunt should take the Shuttle as that will allow them to cover a wider area, Team Jack, Miranda and Wrex should take the Mako, and team Liara, Garrus and you should take the hammerhead because of the terrain”

“Very well then, all teams, Goodluck and Godspeed. Move out” I didn’t even get to finish, all teams were rushing to their designated vehicles. Like an efficient well oiled machine, the teams moved into position, and the Normandy set off to its first stop. The first drop was for team 1, they had the largest area to cover. After dropping them off, as we were heading to the second drop off point, Tali came over to the hammerhead, “Major, the Shuttle is ready for launch”.

“Excellent Tali, launch as soon as we drop the Mako, in the meantime, head to the sensor array, try to narrow the search for us as much as possible”

“Aye Aye, Major” Tali replied back with her usual enthusiasm and corky accent.

While sitting in the hammerhead waiting for the third and final drop off, I glanced over and saw Liara, buried deep in her thoughts and Garrus, as usual, checking his equipment and analyzing his scanners. Looking at those 2, I couldn’t help but look back at how far we’ve gone, it seemed like a few weeks ago that we found Liara trapped in a bubble of her own doing. While Ash and I were contemplating whether to trust her or not, Shepard instinctively knew he could trust her, and boy was he right. If it was me, I would have left her there, missing out on the greatest addition to the team, but thats John Shepard for you. He was truly a unique man, I mean he IS truly a unique man.  
Seeing him on the field, you’d think he is the alpha male soldier type that does nothing in his spare time but exercise, drink beer, punch a bag and get laid. But as a partner, he is a different person, he’s playful and fun to be around and he always loved to embrace life, he is everything a person would want in a soul mate. Passionate, caring and loving, he had this way of making one feel that he’s the only person in the world that mattered to him. We could both be in a crowded restaurant or party or wherever and the way he looks into my eyes, its like no one else is around, and no one else matters.  
Even in bed, I have been at both sides of the spectrum before, and almost always lust takes over and nothing else matters but achieving an edge. With Shepard it was different, it didn't matter where we were or what time we had for each other. From the start to the end, the time we spent was like transcending into a higher existence that only our 2 souls would share. In a symphony of emotions, I would feel his warm body against mine, his tongue lingering over all my sensitive areas. He always took his time with me, knowing exactly which areas to stimulate to drive me crazy. Slowly, but surely, the pressure keeps building until I almost explode, I don’t know how he always knew that I am almost there, but he did, he would stop until the tension broke down. It was my turn, and no matter how much I tried, I don’t think I could ever reach his level of attention and care, but, despite my obvious lousy job in pleasuring him, he would always say that it was the perfect sensation for him. Then as he pushes himself into me, I would have this unbelievable rush of emotions. John didn’t like to frak doggy style, while I enjoyed it every once in a while, he would always say that the whole act would be useless if you couldn’t see your partners eyes as he moves into you. I would look into those beautiful blue topaz gems, and imagine, a part of this man is inside me, its not just that, his eyes would scream out to me saying that this is the only thing I can give, this is my love Kai, this is all I have to give you. My heart would always scream back, its all I ever wanted. In our final moments, as we are both reaching the top of this insatiable volcano, his hands would slowly reach out for mine, and only one thought remains between us as we jump of the edge together, “you complete me”. 

Snapping back to the present, I could’t help but wonder how I got from Liara’s rescue to sex with Shepard. I also couldn’t help but feel how extremely un-masculine these thoughts felt like, I took a deep cough and then laughed deeply, if Shepard was here he would have picked up the cough and said something like “hmm, you should also adjust your dick to let us know that you’re the man”, he would laugh, he always wanted me to be comfortable enough with my thoughts, at least around him. To get myself back to the mission, I shouted to Cortez, who was in the pilot seat of the Hammerhead, “Cortez, ETA”. “6 minutes out sir”, he yelled back. And for those 6 minutes, I closed my eyes, and dreamed myself back to Shepard’s arms.

The search was taking longer than I expected, though EDI and Tali narrowed down the search zones to about 100. Each zone took anywhere from ten minutes to 3 hours. As soon as we got out of the hammerhead, we knew that this would be a long and exhaustive search, piles and piles of bodies where everywhere. Some were charred to the bone, some were disfigured, it was a horror scene. Thinking Shepard could be any one of those bodies was not helping. Whenever the scans came back negative, my heart would skip a beat, hope is still there. The hammerhead couldn’t use its scanners to identify a positive match because of the lingering radiation in the region, so each group needed to get off the vehicle, get close to the source of the signal and try to either match the signal or the body, if anything remained of it. 

Looking around, it was the first time I truly took in the devastation caused by this war. No one was alive in sight, buildings were leveled everywhere. Our search area was roughly outside of Manchester, it was on the edge of the debris field, but it was an area with a lot of hills and valleys, ups and downs. The destruction was as far as the eye could see, bodies everywhere. As I waited for my omni-tool to finish the analysis, I couldn’t help but think if Shepard was one of those disfigured bodies. What if he didn’t survive the reaper beam back in London, what if he did survive, launched the Crucible, then burned in re-entry. All these questions came rushing in.  
Time went by and soon enough, it was night, Liara came over to my side, with a soft but concerned voice she said “Kaidan, its night already and we have been searching for hours, you need to rest, your team needs to rest, I’ve called the Normandy to pick us up”. I couldn’t believe my ears, rest, how can I rest when a part of me is out here. Hmm…Rest. I was about to lash back at her, then I turned around and saw it, her blue eyes were dimmed down to a lighter shade of blue, her skin was pale and her head nodes seemed to have shrunk, she was truly exhausted, thats when I realized that nobody had a chance to rest since before the attack on the Illusive man’s base, which was probably around 48 hours ago, maybe even 72. I looked at Liara with my deepest sorrow, then activated my comm,

“Joker”

“Yes commander”

“ETA to our location”

“14 minutes sir”

“Ok, Joker listen carefully, find me 2 crew members that have at least basic field training, I want you to come over, take Liara and Garrus, and drop of these 2, Understood”

Liara interrupted me at this point “Kaidan, you need to rest too, it wouldn’t help Shepard if you collapsed of dehydration or hunger, when was the last time you ate or slept”

I looked back into Liara’s eyes, and responded “I can’t, I just can’t stop, every minute counts, I have some supplies in my pack and the Normandy can provide me with more when I need it, you 2 go, I know you are exhausted, you can resume the search in 12 hours”

Liara had that look of concern on her face, on the one hand she knew that I couldn’t give up the search, wouldn’t to be more precise, but on the other, she was worried that my biotics would act up in the field or that I would collapse from hunger or fatigue. She looked at me again, and said “fine, give me your omni-tool”, I raised my arm as she programmed a code into my device, then she said “ok I have programmed your omni-tool to monitor your vitals and I have installed several fail-safes into your suit, if anything happens to you, the tool would let me and EDI know and we would come and get you immediately, understood”

I looked back at her with a tired smile “fine, fine, now go, you are delaying my progress”. Both Liara and Garrus laughed as they headed towards the Normandy’s bay door, two officers came out and stood at attention. I quickly briefed them before setting them off to continue in Liara and Garrus’s tracks. 

In the meantime, I contacted the Normandy, “Joker”

“Yes Commander”

“how many active officers do you have on board”

it took him a few seconds to report back, “Sir we have 5 maybe 6 fit for duty as of now”

“Great, did you extract the other 2 teams yet”

“On my way commander”

“Ok, here is what I need you to do, have the six officers prep for a field scan op, have EDI brief then on the mission parameters and the ground team update them before handing off. Joker I want teams on the ground consistently, understood”

“Yes Commander”

“Ok, keep me posted, Alenko Out”.

Night turned into day, and day into night, then the second night turned into the third day, by then I had been living on field rations for the 2 days and floating dangerously near dehydration, my body was about to give up on me, I fell to the ground under my own armor weight. For over 16 hours, I have been fighting this horrible headache that came from overtaxing my L2 implants, though this time, I think the cause was organic, not mechanic. As I lay there on the floor, motionless, I could hear the sound of the Normandy’s engines close by, the last thing I saw was my omni-tool flashing red. 

I woke up in Med bay, a mess of tubes going in and out of me. “Where am I” I yelled, Karen came rushing to my side “Major, lay down”, I screamed “Let me out of here, I have to find him, please let me go”, Karen shot back, trying to restrain me “Major, you came in here with a case of extreme dehydration and your biotics were about to cause major harm to your inner organs. Kaidan, you were over due by at least 16 hours, any more and you would have died”. But I didn’t want to listen, Shepard was out there and I couldn’t relax until I had him back in my arms. “let me go, thats an order Dr.”, “Sorry major, order overruled by medical decision” she touched her omni-tool, and I slipped back into that black void.

As I slipped away, it seemed that my subconscious didn’t. I was taken back to that day, that very first day I saw John Shepard. I had been been assigned to the SSV Normandy for about a month now, it was my first assignment with Commander Anderson, but I knew that I would enjoy working with his crew. We were docked at the Citadel, running our routine scans, and preparing the ship for its maiden mission, when rumors started to go around about our commander assigning a new XO to replace navigator Priestly. One thing you get to admire about the Normandy and its Commander, they always treated their crew as family. And so, all were annoyed by the fact that Priestly, one of us, was going to be side stepped by an intruder. You can say that an understanding was shared about this new fella, he will have a hard time joining the party. 

It was about mid-day when the main system VI announced that the commander was in the air lock. I was sitting next to Joker, helping him finish the maneuvering sensors’ diagnostics. As Anderson walked in, we got up to give him a salute, he immediately said “At ease men”, that was what I liked about the Commanding Officer of the Normandy at that time, he really never gave a damn about recognition or salutations. His next words were what we were waiting for, the introduction, and not to disappoint, Anderson said “I’d like to introduce you to your new XO, Commander John Shepard”. They say when one first sees his soul mate, time literally slows down, you can feel every beat of your heart, and for a moment, it seems that your heart is beating in sync with theirs. Well, I can tell you that its a huge load of crap, when I first saw Shepard, I loathed him. He walked into the flight deck, wearing his shinny N7 armor, guns all loaded, with an attitude we all expected - I am this tough, new SOB that is here to shape you up, now worship me. He probably didn’t do anything to provoke this thought, looking back in fact, he was very nice to us, gave us a courteous head nod as he said “nice to meet you officers”, but at the time, all I can think of is “I’ll be damned if this G.I.JOE is going to break our family apart”. 

I should explain, after my abrupt departure from Brain camp, and after I joined the Alliance, it took me a while to find my….let’s say tempo. While I did receive commendations and praise for being this brave super biotic soldier, or whatever they wanted to call it, I never felt like I fit in anywhere. Remember when Jack joined the team, how she was isolated, even hated by some crew members, out of fear or distrust maybe, that was how I felt. When Anderson came and asked me to join his crew on the Normandy, I asked him for private quarters, isolated from the rest of the crew, of course he denied my request, cause little did I know, he didn’t want me for my skills, he wanted me because I fit well with his team. 

Anyways, back to the first time I met Shepard, as he was being introduced, Anderson asked me to show Shepard around the ship and answer any of his questions. I, of course, cursed my luck under my breath, and reluctantly got up to obey the order, not before looking to Joker and asking “hey will you be ok here without me”, my comment was not meant for inquisition, of course he will be, but it was intended to show this new shiny superman that I have better things to do than babysit him, naturally he didn’t pick up on that. As we walked through navigation, the commander was so poised, inspecting every little inch with his eyes, those blue eyes. He then asked “Why do we need 8 technicians on the command deck”, it was a fair question, but at the time, all I could think of is how stupid is this guy, “Sir, during travel, the VI and pilot handle most of the navigation, however, during battle, the other navigators work in cohesion to provide the pilot with the best routes. They also assess all possible threats surrounding the Normandy at any given time in battle”. He nodded, as I moved quickly to avoid any follow-up questions. It took around 2 hours to finish the tour, during this time, I can’t say I wasn’t surprised about the commander’s attitude, he was friendly with many members of the crew. When we walked into the Med Bay, he immediately hugged Dr. Chakawas, I wondered if he does that with all his physicians, but then he clarified “Nice to see you again Dr.”, she smiled back to him “likewise Commander, Glad to have you on the Normandy. Try not to blow yourself up this time”, they shared a laugh, then talked a little about previous crew members they worked with before. As we made our way to the lower decks, he struck a surprisingly delightful conversation with the armory officer, where they shared their opinions on the different licensing brands and how to make money of each, he ended it by telling the officer that he should purchase certain things from the Citadel and sell them to any crew member who needs it, making a few extra bucks in the process, “I’ll be the first to buy”. During all his conversations, I was silent, looking at him with this doubtful gaze, thinking “Who are you trying to trick here pretty boy”, pretty boy, who am I. Anyways, we then stopped at the Mako to show and explain to him the new upgrades and mods implemented to the Normandy’s Mako model. Again, what is it with this guy and nice conversations, its getting pretty tough to hate his guts, but still Priestly is our guy. The engine room was next, and it was like orientation week all over again, Shepard asked 100 different questions about the engines, the stealth technology, the propulsion systems, weapons, shielding and more, I was surprised the bathroom mirror demister wasn’t included in those questions, What a tool I thought. I was a jerk back then, and I as I look back, I wish I had taken the time to better know the Commander, I would have definitely cherished those few extra moments, I regret it now. 

I was suddenly pulled back to the Med Bay, Karen was sitting at her desk when I woke up. I looked at her, and with a bare whisper I yelled “Dr.”. She came over immediately, “Major, Relax”, I heard her, but how can I relax, I am nothing but a shell looking for its filling, I need my heart and soul back. “How long have I been out”, she looked at her omni-tool, “about 4 hours”. My eyes started to tear a little, I don’t even know why they did this time, maybe because I was rehydrated intravenously. I looked at her, and with all the strength I could summon to support this brave whisper I said “Karin, I need to get back out there”, She raised her hand and said “Major, I won’t have you die on my watch”, I continued, I felt that I can’t order her, I can only plead as a kindergarten student would to his teacher, “Karin, please, you have to let me go, I have to find him, you know how much he means to…” and with this note I broke down, during this whole ordeal I had moments of darkness, of weakness but never a moment of vulnerability as this one. I wasn’t just tearing, I broke the dam, and the river of emotions rushed out. I have never cried like this before, never with this level of anguish and despair. She must have seen how much pain I was in, she felt that the migraines I get from my biotics were gentle pinches compared to what I was going through. I think she too loved Shepard, as a brother maybe or a son, because she immediately grabbed and pulled me to her chest and started to share my pain. Our cries were like raging fires, roaring through a forest, it burned each of us so much. I finally looked at her and said “Karen, I can’t sit here, I can’t, knowing that he is out there, maybe grasping to his last breaths, I can’t, please, I can’t lose him again”. She looked to me with puffy red eyes, finally she broke and said “All right Major, I’ll authorize you for duty, but only if you promise to report to me every 6 hours, I need to make sure your biotics are not about to kill you”. Reluctantly I agreed, anything it will take to get me out there. “Alright Major, get the hell out of my Med bay” she said with a smile, as I reached for the door, she caught up with me and said “Oh and Major, bring him back”. I gave her a reassuring nod “I will Dr.”. As I geared up to set out, I asked EDI to fill me in on the last 4 hours’ progress. I half expected her to tell me they halted the search, but I was gravely mistaken. “We have been able to narrow the search further Commander to a few dozen spots, we also recruited roughly 11 survivors to aid us in the search for Commander Shepard”. 11 more people, that means our count is up to 20, better chances. “Ok EDI, ask Joker to drop me wherever I am needed most”, she was silent for a few seconds, “The most vital area for search now is near the outskirts of London, team 2 has been there for the past 3 hours, it is best to join them as the area they are surveying is the largest.” “Roger that EDI, Joker, set a course”. “Yes Commander, and welcome back” Joker said with his usual tone.

As the Normandy set down near a ping, I could’t believe what laid before me. First, EDI informed me that the radiation in and around London is sufficient enough to kill any human in approximately 3.233 hours. I needed full armor and shielding for this one, god, that means the VI for Shepard’s suit will need to maintain shields, our deadline has just been moved up by several days. “EDI”, I said through my helmet’s comm link, “how much time does the Commander have if he landed in these conditions”, a few seconds went by “It is hard for me to tell Major, I would estimate, based on his last readings, and under efficient re-entry protocols, that his suit’s shielding and stasis mod would continue to function for another 7.42 hours at the most.” Looking at the time, it was roughly 2 a.m., which means we have till maybe 9 to find him. I looked at my omni-tool as it gave me the beep that meant it competed its signature analysis and no match exists. Since London was a hotspot for radiation, the best way to do the search was to do a manual omni-tool search for a small perimeter, and then move on to the next. It was a tedious and slow process as you are not just scanning at ping locations, you are scanning everywhere. I took a few seconds to gather my thoughts, then pressed the comm button again “EDI…..Mobilize all teams now”. It was a risk, a dangerous gamble, I had the love of my life on the floor and I was betting against fate itself, but it wouldn’t really matter in 7 hours. “Commander, the teams just returned from 12 hour duties”, I touched my comm again “EDI, thats an order, and handle the assignment for each scan location based on the most efficient simulation you got, I want boots on the ground in 15”. I then looked at my omni-tool, touched a few commands, then pressed my comm “EDI, I am going silent, will check in every half an hour, Alenko out”.

The next 4 or 5 hours were brutal, my feet were killing me, and my biotics where acting up for some reason. Every step I took, I could feel the migraine attempting to manifest itself in force. But I resisted with every fibre of my existence, this was it, it was the home stretch, if we didn’t find Shepard in the next couple of hours, any hope of rescuing him alive would be gone. The thought of putting him through the Lazerus project again was tempting, Cerberus brought back once, if we find the body, maybe Miranda can do it again. But that of course was the mother of all wishful thoughts, bringing a man back from the dead twice would have grave consequences on him, never mind the psych side of things, it would be like drawing a line, erasing it, drawing it again and erasing, with each wipe, the line more and more distant from the original. I thought about cloning, but that wouldn’t matter, I’ve seen Shepard’s clone and it was nothing like him, I am not looking for the wrapping paper, I am looking for the whole package.  
As I waited for my next ping, my mind wondered off to the past. I couldn’t help but think of our first meeting, how did this man get me to turn from loathing him, to can’t live without him? sure there is a very fine line between love and hate, and often one is mistaken for the other, but I am pretty sure this wasn’t the case. 

Soon after Shepard settled in, we were called for the Eden Prime mission. It was one of the hardest missions I have ever been on, seeing all those mangled civilians, some turned by Sovereign into horrible lifeless bodies. Most importantly seeing Jenkins die right next to me, and feeling his lifeless body in my hand, I remember the thought “c’mon Jenkins, we still have to check this new night club Flux together buddy, c’mon". Lame, I know, but in these moments you really forget the big picture and focus on the smaller things. Of course, seeing Ash again and having her join our team was a bitter sweet joy for me. Anyways, the first time I ever looked at Shepard differently, without the cynical eye, was when he pushed me out of the Beacons’ wave discharge and took the blow himself. I couldn’t believe it, here I was thinking of how much I disliked this commando, secretly wishing that it was him who died instead of Jenkins, and he selflessly, without any reason, pushed me out of harms way. At this moment I felt the horrible realty, the truth I was hiding from myself all these years, its not them, its me. All this time, I was convincing myself that I am the good guy, and the others are the ones who are seeing things skewed. But as Shepard taught me that day, I was a horrible person, I wanted Shepard to die because he took the position of XO, rightfully I might add, from a friend, and this man, this good good man, did everything he possibly could to save me, including taking the metaphorical bullet for me. As we rushed him to Med bay, all I could think is “please don’t die, please don’t die on me now”. A while later he got up, and with the most surprising of attitudes, concern, he asked me how I was. He just took my place in the grim reapers’ list, and all he wanted to make sure of is how I was doing, if this was a couple of thousand years ago, I would have owed you my life in return for saving it, but now, all I can do is try to make sure I don’t screw yours anymore. From this moment on, I knew that how I saw John Shepard changed forever. 

As I returned to the present, my omni-tool pinged again to tell me that the scan results were, shockingly, negative. Time was running out, I checked the time, it was 8:17 a.m., which meant that the window for finding Shepard alive was closing, 43 minutes and counting. With the weight of the galaxy on my shoulders, I dropped to my knees, all I could think of was that he’s gone, its over. Now, I am usually not a religious man, heck, from what I’ve seen, I don’t even believe that their is a deity, male, female or whatever, thats watching over us, but at this moment, I truly needed one. With tears in my eyes, I looked up and thought “if anybody is out there, if anybody is listening, please, please, save the part of me that is lost out there”. With this thought, I got up, and started scanning the next area, piles and piles of bodies were lying around, some in armor, some not, but the problem is that some bodies were starting to decompose. It took a lot of energy to stop myself from thinking that Shepard’s body, that body that I have an insatiable appetite for might be decomposing as I lay here. I wished the omni-tool to work faster, and soon enough, the negative ping came through. As the clock struck nine, taking the last fibre of my existence with it, I reached for my comm and called EDI, with a hopeless shake I asked “EDI, anything”, her voice came back through the comm like a metallic spike that went through my ear and into my soul, shattering whats left of it. “I am sorry Major, ground crew reports nothing and the orbital shuttle reports no signs of him, however, based on my calculations, the window won’t close for another 22 minutes”, I looked down at the ground, my shadow lay before, outlining my deepest desires that I was looking at my grave, “Ok EDI, have the teams working till the window closes, then pull the alpha team out, let the beta team continue the search till they find his…” I choked, “Understood, Commander, should I ask Joker to pass by and pick you up”, I immediately looked to the sky, as if my salvation was there, “No EDI, I need some time alone, maintain radio silence, I’ll contact you when I am ready to be picked up”, or hopefully, my suit will when I am gone.

With a flick of a button, I was isolated from the rest of the world. I looked at my omni-tool as I initiated the next perimeter search thinking “Whats the point, he’s gone, he left me, he’s gone”. I couldn’t stand, my feet felt like quicksand as I slowly fell to the ground. I went back to another sweet spot, the day I first connected emotionally with John. 

After John received his Spectre status, the entire crew was celebrating what a victory this was, somehow, Shepard managed to turn this entire crew’s feelings towards him from aloof and resentful to appreciative and admiration. After 5 short weeks, you couldn’t find one crew member aboard the Normandy that didn’t adore him. Naturally we all felt an overwhelming sense of pride when we heard that our XO is now the first human Spectre. It wasn’t a small feat and he surely deserved. The way he talked to the council, defending humanity and even restoring Anderson’s dignity by exposing Saren was nothing short of genius. 

So, we were celebrating his new elite status and his new promotion to Commander of the Normandy, one would think that replacing Anderson would get him a few resentful looks, but everybody knew how he shoved it to Udina when he informed him of his new command, thanks to Ash and me of course, we spread the news to the crew like wildfire. In the end, it was one hell of a celebration, the entire crew was having fun, and the best part is that our new commander was with us, enjoying himself too. Shepard never thought of himself as Commander, he always made us feel comfortable around him, like he is just one of the guys.

Anyways, later that evening, I was sitting in the mess alone, everyone seemed to have turned in to prepare for our early launch the next day. I was lost deep in my thoughts when the commander suddenly grabbed a seat next to me. He was wearing the staff uniform, just like all crew members, he didn’t even bother to put on the captain’s uniform. As I looked at him, he smiled at me and asked coyly “So, Who is she?”, I laughed “What are you talking about Commander”, he shot me one of his stern gazes, “first of all Lt. its Shepard, Secondly, when a man is so lost in his thoughts, its usually because he is thinking of a lover”. I continued to laugh, “How do you know its a She?”, he laughed hard “So it is a lover, he or she doesn’t matter, it is a lover”. I smiled back at him, contemplating whether or not I should tell him about the person on my mind, back then I thought I stood a chance against the charm of John Shepard, boy was I mistaken. As I was coming to my decision, he looked at me, smiled and said “ok you stay here, I’ll go grab us a drink, and when I come back be ready to spill”. I couldn’t help but smile, I thought to myself there is no point, and I owed him something for saving my life. He came back with 2 cool bottles of beer, I was still surprised he managed to get these drinks on board an Alliance vessel, but apparently, being a Spectre had its privileges. He turned the chair next to me around, sat on it backwards, handed me the bottle and said one word “Spill”.

Over the next twenty minutes or so, I did exactly as he ordered me, I told him about Jump zero, and Rahna, how I cared for her deeply, how she broke my heart just by refusing to trust me, how she threw my love for her back in my face in the coldest manner possible, and all through my babbling, he was listening intently. After I was done, I looked at him with a soft defeated smile and said “well that’s my story”. He took in a deep breath, as if analyzing a battle situation that presented itself to him, I was expecting the usual crap I got from people who heard the story, “her loss dude” or “you did what you can” or maybe even “buck up”, but John didn’t say any of these words, he looked deeply into my eyes, as if he was trying to break through my body and see all the way to my soul and said “you really loved her didn’t you”, I exhaled deeply and said “yep”, he looked back up and said “I know how you feel”. Shock came over me, the great Commander Shepard knows of Heart break, till now I only imagined him as the kind of guy that would have a one nighter with any woman that pleased him, is he now saying that he had a broken heart. I looked back at him with a puzzled look and asked “what do you mean you feel for me, what happened?”. He was fidgeting with the label of his bottle, he took a deep breath and explained “When I joined the Alliance, I met someone, she was a scientist in training, we met during my orientation on the Arcturus station”, his focus seemed to narrow down to removing the label of the bottle in his hand, it was clear that this memory was painful for him. “After graduation, she got assigned to Elysium to be part of a top secret scientific expedition in the Petra Nebula. Before she left, I proposed to her, gave her my promise ring and we were engaged. Everything seemed perfect at first, but as I joined N7 and my career advanced, our relationship was getting a little shaky, we would see each other once every month or 2. That until I was reassigned to Elysium, when I told her the news, silly me, I expected that she would be ecstatic. Instead she met it with the weirdest reaction, I had a feeling she wasn’t happy I was going to be there. As I arrived at Elysium, she didn’t even meet me at the space port, it took me about 5 days before I heard from her, and all I got was a we need to talk”. Finally he scratched the label off, he put the bottle on the table in front of him and then looked into my eyes again with this unbelievably piercing gaze, he continued “we met a couple of days later at a restaurant by her apartment, she said that it was nice to see me again, as if we hadn’t seen each other in years. I immediately noticed that she wasn’t wearing my ring, what came next didn't surprise me, but her coldness did. She reached into her bag, got out a small envelope and handed it to me, inside was my promise ring. She started saying something about another scientist she met at her expedition, and how my career will always come ahead of her, and that she didn’t want to sit at home and hope that her husband isn’t dead somewhere, she said that all this was too much for her to take. I couldn’t even say a word, I could have accepted anything, but betrayal. Anyways, she left that day without apologizing or even saying goodbye. Four days later, she was killed in the Skyllian Blitz.” He dropped his head down, looking to the floor, while he didn't say it, I felt that he somehow blamed himself for her death, maybe he thought that if he had been around more, or somehow convinced her to not leave him, she would be alive. At this moment, I felt my first connection with John, it was a depressing one to say the least, but a shared sorrow is greater than a million joys. I exhaled deeply, looked at him and finally said “so we both had our hearts broken hmm”, he chuckled lightly, keeping his eyes to the ground, as if he did something horrible. I knew I needed to change the topic, to buy myself sometime, I collected the beer bottles and asked “Why don’t I bring us another round?”, he nodded “yeah, I’d like that”. As I walked over to the mess fridge, I started thinking, what can we talk about, The only 2 topics that came to mind were either ask him about his N7 training or his thoughts on being the first human Spectre, I decided to go with the Spectre thing. As I walked back, I found Ash sitting in the chair next to him. For a split second, for an iota of time, I wanted to scream “get away bitch”, but quickly that turned into relief that I did’t have the burden of picking a conversation anymore. I grabbed a third beer, went to the table and teased Ash “well well, look who finally decided to grace us with her presence”, she teased back something, and thus started a tradition of us three hanging out together, alone, talking all through the night.

With that note, I snapped back to my bitter present, I looked at the clock, it was 9:17 a.m., less than 5 minutes remained before the window closed. I had already lost hope after my second failed scan past 9, I wasn’t kidding myself, I knew it was over. As I got to my feet and prepared to move to the next and last perimeter, I heard a sonic boom in the sky, it sounded weird, sounded like Joker had suddenly floored the gas pedal on the Normandy from about a hundred miles away. I turned my comm back on and immediately my omni-tool came to life with what looked like a thousand messages. I pressed my comm button “Joker was that you”, his voice came through the comm, like the winds of creation breathing life to its first star, he said  
“WE FOUND HIM”.

Joker’s message took what seemed like an eternity to register, as I came back to focus, I heard Joker screaming through the comm “Major do you read, we have Shepard, we have a positive ID”, I dared not ask the main question on mind, is he alive, I didn’t want this hope taken away from me. In a matter of seconds, I went from a shadow hovering around in the deepest caves of tartarus, to a warrior on the highest mounts of Olympus. Only one person had this effect on me, John Shepard, only him, and even in his darkest hour, even when his mortality hangs in the balance, he still did. 

I snapped out of it again, and yelled “Joker, Where, Where is his position”, Joker yelled back “Major he is about 3.2 miles NorthEast from your position, EDI has uploaded the navpoint to your omni-tool, The Normandy is roughly 360 miles away Major, with maximum atmospheric sub-light we can be there inside of ten minutes”. 

I didn’t even respond, I began running, faster than I knew I could ever run before. As I headed northeast, I uploaded the navpoint to my helmet’s VI. As the number fell from 3.2, I could feel my biotics giving me the sustained speed I required, 2.3, I wanted more, I needed more, 1.8, although I was running faster than humanly possible, sustained only by the combination of adrenaline and biotics, time seemed uninformed of this speed. The numbers were tantalizing, slowly building up into full blown torture. “0.9 miles”, the VI spoke in my ears, my thoughts were racing, “I am coming Shepard, hang on, Please, just hang on”. 0.4 miles, I was so close, but because of the wreckage, I couldn’t see anything yet. 

As soon as I hit 0.2, I saw it, and for one crystalizing second, a picture of both despair and perfection materialized in front of me. I am sure it wasn’t like that, but I could have sworn that I saw it all. Shepard was lying in nearly an empty perfect circle, all around the edge of the circle lay ruin and death. The unidentified crew member that found him stands above him with her omni-tool on, and all this was accentuated with a single ray of sunshine that came through the stormy clouds of London, focusing its golden allure only on Shepard’s body and nothing else. I could’t help but wonder how insightful this vision was, that was exactly what Shepard meant to me. 

Finally, I reached the closed armor. I removed my helmet immediately to check with my own unobstructed eyes the sight in front of me. Touching the suit to make sure its not just a dream that I would wake up from, making sure I am not under Dr. Chakawas’s medical influence, that in a few moments I wouldn't be knocked back to the harsh, cruel, cold reality. I lit my omni-tool and started scanning, I couldn’t hear anything around, couldn’t see anything but him, I needed to know, I needed to find out if, under this charred steel cage, my heart was alive.

I didn’t realize that the woman who found him was trying to talk to me, she finally put here hand on my shoulders, snapping me back, and said “Major, the commander is alive, but his power levels are dropping fast and his stasis field is about to collapse”. What, he’s alive, my heart jump started, my soul burned with the heat of a thousand blue stars, and my existence, all that I am was once more complete. But time is running out, the officer had already connected with the VI, but most functions were turned off to conserve power and maintain the stasis field. We had no idea how much damage his body had sustained, and if dropping the field would have a terminal effect on him. From the read outs, it seemed his main power pack was depleted and his auxiliary pack was near its maximum entropy. Instinctively, I pulled out my suit’s power pack, connected with the suit’s VI and got it to open the main power compartment. It opened with a hiss, the unit in place was completely fried, I assumed, from the looks of things, it burned in the re-entry process, when the switch occurred between main and auxiliary power packs. As I removed the damaged pack and inserted mine, a few tiny lights came on inside the pack, telling me that the suit is drawing power. I knew my pack was well below the desired mark, but it would give Shepard the extra moments he needed till the Normandy arrived. 

As we waited, I started communicating with the VI, seeing that power was low, and my pack was not contributing that much, I decided to leave the main functions turned off and do the inspection myself. The suit was in bad condition, it was charred all over, black with barely any plating left on the outside. It seems that the only thing that saved him, and still is, is the internally generated shielding, covering the stasis field. Even the N7 tag had been wiped off the suit. As I examined the charred remains of the metallic angel that saved not only Shepard’s life, but mine too, I heard the loud bang of my omni-tool, as I brought it up to see what it had, it displayed “Signature Found”. I had totally forgot that the scanner was still active from the perimeter swipe, even though it was telling me something I knew already, the thought that Shepard was inside the suit, holding my tags close to his barely beating heart, was powerful enough to renew my hope. 

Within seconds, the Normandy came in sight, I could see the Bay doors were already open and Dr. Chakawas was there with a Med Bed. I tried to carry Shepard, but his suit was extremely heavy, and I was weak, so with my last breath, I called on my biotic power to give me the final boost I needed to get him on board. As the blue haze engulfed me, I lifted him up to my chest and started walking towards the ship. Before it even touched down, Samara, Jack and Miranda jumped out of the Ship and ran towards me. As they came closer, Samara yelled “Miranda take care of the Major, Jack and I will take the Commander”. Falling down under the strain of my own biotics, I could feel Shepard getting lighter, soon he was floating away from my arms, “No” I screamed incoherently. I looked up to see that Jack had summoned a field around Shepard’s suit and Samara was guiding it towards the Med Bed, soon enough, Miranda was standing almost on top of me, she grabbed my hands as I fell to the ground. I was slipping away again, this time, it wasn’t into a dark void, or an endless sea of pain, but a peaceful place.

As the dream materialized, I could see where I was. I was walking onto the old Normandy’s airlock, as the decontamination process began, Shepard, Liara and I proceeded to take off our armor. Liara looked troubled, she was silent but her eyes were almost about to give in to her grief. I realized where and when this was taking place, Noveria, Liara just witnessed he mothers death. After Shepard took his armor off, he walked over to Liara, and took her into his arms. It was the first time I saw this compassionate side of Shepard, this loving and nurturing side. Up till now, he managed to show me that he was one hell of a soldier, a great team player, a courageous leader, a caring friend, a stubborn negotiator and a loyal ally. I never knew he could share this level of empathy with someone. As he took her into his arms, she finally broke, he kept telling her that it was ok to cry, that her mother was a hero, that her death marks the beginning not the end. As soon as the inner doors opened, Liara stepped back, wiped her tears and thanked him for his words, she stepped out of the air lock and headed in. For a moment, he seemed miserable, like Benezia’s death was his fault. He looked at me and said “lets go”.  
Later that night, I was passing by the mess when I saw him, he was sitting on a chair and had his foot up on the other. By then, I had gotten pretty close to John, sure we talked about his N7 training and about being a Spectre, but we also talked about a lot more. Remember the late night talks tradition I mentioned before, the ones with him, Ash and me, well, the tradition expanded to include 2 more people, Liara and Garrus. For a while, it seemed that our Normandy family had a subset, a smaller family of 5 that got together each night for a drink and chat. As he sat there, he was so lost in thought. So naturally, I went to the kitchen grabbed 2 cold ones, and headed over to him. As I gave him his bottle, I joked saying “you know, a very wise commander told me once that when a man is lost so deep in thought, its usually about a lover”. He laughed hard and looked at me, again with that soul teasing look, “What a wise man that commander is, Introduce me to him soon.” Then he looked away as he continued “I am just thinking of what happened today, how hard it must be for Liara to see her mother’s legacy end like that, then that Rachni queen using her body. I tried to go and talk to her again, but she insisted that she is fine and that she just needs to rest”. As I looked at his worried face, I realized that he was blaming himself for Benezia’s death, so I told him “Hey, its not your fault, Saren’s the one who did that to Benezia, she practically begged you to free her from his hold. You are a good person Shepard, don’t bear the guilt of someone else’s actions.” What I didn’t realize was that my hand was on his shoulders, slowly rubbing it. As I became extremely conscious of the fact that I was rubbing my commander’s shoulders, I immediately pulled them away. 

Up till now, I always knew that I had a taste for both ends of the bar, I tended to linger towards one end more than the other, but I liked them both. What I never had before was a relationship, an affection for this side. It wasn’t the first time I noticed it with Shepard, after that first night we talked in the mess, and that moment of Jealousy I had when Ash joined, those feelings started to develop. First, I just thought they were admiration, or even a desperation, a need for approval, like a student’s need to impress his teacher. But as time went by, those feelings turned into urges, not necessarily sexual urges, but a sense of longing. Whenever I felt he was down, I felt the need to cheer him up, I always focused most when he talked, and whenever he walked in a room, you could see my eyes following him around. Luckily, no one noticed, no one even suspected that I have these feelings towards our Commander. He didn’t make things easier too, I am not going to talk about the tight military pants that slowly but surely caresses every curve of his body, those pants that drive me so crazy that I feel the need to jump him, tear them off and tenderly kiss all that is underneath. No I am not talking about that, I am talking about him always being around me, maybe it was my imagination, or wishful thinking, but it always seemed like the commander was finding every possible chance to come and talk. I expected that his selection of me for most missions was because of my strong battlefield skills, but a small part of me was hoping that he did that because he liked to see my ass in tight armor. 

As we sat there in the mess, just me and him, he shot a look and asked “so Lt., you never told me what you are looking for in a partner”. I nearly choked out, What is he asking, is he trying to check if I will be interested in him, or is he just asking a simple question and I am doing that whole wishful thinking again. I was surprised with the use of the word partner, if he wasn’t thinking about me in that sense, why didn’t he say girl, or wife. So I decided to take a chance and mention what I liked about him, mix in a few other things, but not before I torture him a bit. “Why do you want know Shepard, have someone in mind for me”, He laughed, “Well why not, I hear the Hanar Diplomats are wild”. I shared his laugh, then I began “well I don’t know, I really don’t have a list, but if I have to say, I need someone that I can depend on, you know, fall back on whenever I can’t make it on my own”. I looked away as I continued “I want someone to hold me when things go bad, when my episodes strike.” I took a deep breath, as I was thinking over what I had just said, after I took a sip, I continued “he has to be a charismatic person, one that would steal the attention in any room he walked in, but modest enough to try to avert it. I want someone that will enjoy a simple walk with me, on the beach, through a park, or even through a landfill, he enjoys it because I am there with him”. I made no attempt to hide the fact that I was referring to a male partner, and I made sure he caught on, as I looked back at him to see what effect my words had, he had his listening intently look on his face, so I went on “I need someone that can make me feel unique, not with words, but with their eyes, one look from them and I would know that I am the only one that will ever matter”. As I said this last part, I realized that I was narrating the exact scene we were in, I was describing exactly what Shepard’s gaze was doing to me, and was secretly hoping that he picked up on it. I continued “I don’t know, I guess what I am looking for is a deep sense of belonging, a sense that whatever the world says or does, we belong together, I would be willing to break through a thousand walls to be with this person and I hope that they would too”. I couldn’t make it clearer how interested I am in him, my last words were meant to hint that I would break any rule, law, code or probation for him. I added finally with the most serious face I could come up with “and most important of all, someone that has an ass that is out of this world, I mean serious steel buns”. We both laughed as he added “Krogan, Elcor….steel buns, hmmm, how about Volus”. We laughed a little, then I turned to him and said “So how about you commander, who will deserve the heart of the great John Shepard”. He gave it a deep thought before he responded “well, I don’t “don’t have a list” like you, but I guess what I am looking for is simplicity, you know, someone I can spend a Saturday afternoon with, sitting on a couch, doing nothing, and then look forward to doing the same thing every day for the rest of our lives. I guess what I am looking for is comfort, someone I would be comfortable being with, even if we just sat in silence”. I was blown away, his words were simple, yet powerful, they were very insightful, words said only by someone like Shepard. I looked to him, taking in what he just said with every sense in my body, hoping and praying to every deity out there that he would feel that with me, and then I spoke out “a Geth might do you good”, he laughed as he turned to look at me, for a minute there, I actually thought he would kiss me like I have never been kissed before. His eyes were screaming restraint, like he was trying to shackle himself to his seat. With that final gaze, he got up and said “Ok Lt, I have to turn in, we have a long journey ahead of us tomorrow, get some sleep Kaidan, and let me know about that Geth you had in mind for me”. I chuckled up, then said “will do Commander, and you set up that date with the Volus”. And with that final comment, we both left.

As I floated back to the present, I couldn’t help but notice that I spent most of the past few days either incapacitated in the Med bay, or in the field. As I opened my eyes to the repeat site of Karen sitting by her desk, I couldn’t help myself but smile. I didn’t know why I did, for all I know, all that I experienced was an effect of the drug induced sleep that I was put through, and Shepard could still be out there. I contemplated that idea for second, and as my heart started to beat more loudly, so did the monitoring systems on the other side of the room, confirming not only that we found Shepard and he was alive, but also that, at this moment, both my heart and Shepard’s are beating in sync. Karen noticed that I was awake and staring at Shepard’s bed, she came over to my side and asked her usual question “Major, how are you feeling?”. I looked at her, and with a sigh of relief I told her “Aren’t you tired of asking me that question”. She chuckled a little, looked at her omni-tool, and started her scans. As she was moving her hands all over me, I couldn’t hold the urge to ask any longer, so i did “Dr. hows Shepard doing”. She looked a little more focused on her omni-tool, concern drew on her face, as if the results were telling her that she was talking to a dead man or something. She turned of her tool, and looked straight at me, “Kaidan, I am going to be honest with, he is not doing very well, we couldn’t risk getting him out of his suit”. I was confused, I looked over his bed, I didn’t notice it before, but as the Dr. said, Shepard was still in his suit. The suit was hooked up to a whole lot of equipment, some for power, some for life support, needless to say, Shepard’s armor was turned into a life pod. In addition to the hook ups, the suit was engulfed in a second stasis field, probably serves as an added level of protection. I looked back at the Dr. “What are we looking at here Dr.”, She looked at her omni-tool and said “we have multiple organ failure, severe trauma to the head, third degree burns on 80% of his body, heart damage, lung damage. To be honest with you Major, its a miracle he survived at all”. I took in her words, I did’t care about the odds, I did’t care about anything, I cared only that Shepard was over there in that bed, and that his heart was beating, anything else was background noise to that. The Dr. gave me a second to process before she continued “Major, naturally I would have advised that we take him to a place like Huerta, where the damage can be repaired, but the problem we are facing is that the Citadel was destroyed, along with the Sol relay, and there are no medical facilities with these capabilities in near space”. It took me a few seconds to ponder this piece of information, then I asked “What about the fleet Dr., Hackett’s fleet has medical ships with those capabilities”, she looked at me with a tired look “unfortunately not, we contacted the fleet, most ships available have systems that are either the same or less the the Normandy’s own”. For some reason today, I was determined not to lose hope, I asked her again “Dr., to the best of your knowledge, where would such a facility exist”. She walked away towards her desk, brought a data pad, came over and gave it to me. As I read through, the pad contained names and locations of several Asari, Salarian and Turian bases, most of which were colored red, as I went through, it seems almost all were destroyed some how. I thought to myself for a moment, then went back to the data pad, a name came up that I realized immediately, Ilos. I looked at the Dr. and asked “Since when does Ilos have a medical facility, and why is it in grey”. She took the data pad to check the info., then looked up “Ah yes, the grey bases are the ones the Liara added herself, I am not sure about their existence, but she assured me that this one is there and that it was kept safe from the Reapers’ attack”. Ilos, even if the facility is there, and even if it survived, we still have the problem of getting to it. Without the Sol Relay, with conventional FTLs, it would take decades to reach the terminus system, and even more to reach Ilos itself, Shepard most certainly won’t have this time, and even if it was remotely possible, am I willing to live the next 50 or 60 years without him, how is that different from him being dead. I knew that nothing will be solved by me sitting here, I looked at Karen and asked “Can I go now”, she looked back at me with that fierce look in her eyes and said “as if I can stop you Major”.

As I left the Med bay, all I can think about was Ilos, the last time we were, the planet was a perfectly preserved shrine for Prothean architecture, there were no colonies there, or medical facilities. I didn’t realize it yet, but my legs were taking me to Liara’s room, I needed to find out what she had in mind. I knocked on her door, Glyph opened for me, “Hello Major Alenko, what can I do for you”, I looked around for my Asari friend, but couldn’t find her, so I asked the drone “Where’s Liara Glyph”, “Dr. T’soni is in Engineering Major”. Engineering, why was Liara in Engineering, as a look of confusion was coming into place on my face, Glyph asked “Is there anything else you need Major”, I looked at the drone for a few seconds “eh….No, Thanks Glyph”, I said as I proceeded to the elevator. While waiting for the elevator to arrive, I took a few moments to gather my thoughts. I haven’t been able to do so since I left the Normandy for battle, was it a day ago, 2 maybe, I lost track of time, All I knew was that for the first time since, I had a few seconds of peace. 

The elevator door finally opened at the engineering deck, as I made my way to the engine room, I started to wonder about what I will find, a wrecked core drive, maybe remnants of a fire. As I entered the core drive room, everything seemed, well in great condition. On my left, Liara was working with Tali on a console, and by the core, EDI was also working on another console. I walked a few steps before calling out “Liara”. She looked at me with a thrill and, as usual, she leaped forward to give me a big hug. I wondered whether all Asari are huge huggers or we got the exception. “Kaidan, thank the goddess you are well”, it seemed that every time I have seen her in the last few days, she said the same thing to me. “How are you doing now” she said with a tone of concern, “I am fine Liara, whats happening here” I replied back with a tone meant to dismiss any concerns about me and focus on one thing only, Shepard. “Maybe we should talk in the conference room, Tali, EDI, Let’s go”. 

As we made our way to the conference room, I couldn’t help but notice that Liara was holding my arm the entire way, as if she was holding on to a childhood teddy bear hoping nothing will take it away. In the conference room, Traynor was already there studying a map of the galaxy. Liara spoke up first “Kaidan, as you know Shepard needs immediate medical attention, and as far as we know, all medical facilities with the capabilities required have been destroyed”, I shook my head while mumbling a silent yes, she continued “what you don’t know is that I have been preparing for the Reapers’ attack for a while now”. I looked at her with my prominent confused expression, she explained “after seeing what happened with Sovereign, and after realizing that neither the council nor the Asari high command is willing to do anything, I took matters into my own hands”. She paused for a quick breath before continuing “As an information broker on Nos Astra, I had many resources, so I devoted these resources to building small, covert colonies on different remote worlds. I was hoping to maintain and preserve as much as possible, without drawing any attention. These colonies would serve as small escape havens to whoever would need them when the time comes”. It was the first time I heard of this, I thought she must have been hit harder in battle than obvious, covert colonies. She went on “When I became the Shadow broker, my resources grew exponentially to become practically limitless, so I pooled everything at my disposal to create a secondary outpost that is as far out from the galactic community as possible. Ilos presented itself as a viable option, the colony was well hidden, and without the Mu Relay, it would be hard to find. So I established a base in the depths of Ilos, filled with the best the galaxy has to offer in everything. It has the best defensive capabilities, best communication relays, best survival amenities and best medical services that surpass those of Huerta memorial”. She looked at me, expecting surprise, or praise, or maybe even guilt for not mentioning this before now, but I genuinely had nothing, I was just trying to compute what she was telling me. I cleared my throat for a second then said “So what you’re telling me is that we have a fully functional, advanced colony on Ilos, what makes you think the Reapers didn’t destroy it”. She looked at me, eyes full of confidence “because the Reapers didn’t reach Ilos in the last cycle when they had more time, moreover, I rigged the Mu relay to explode if any ship attempted to use it without the proper authorization codes”. Now I knew she was not being sincere, the relays are made of a practically indestructible alloy, no race has ever succeeded in destroying a relay before, except Shepard, of course, and only by ramming a moon sized asteroid in the damn thing, that is exactly what I voiced to her. She elaborated “I had an agent of mine upload a virus program to the relay’s core computer, should the virus not receive the correct authentication code, it would shutdown the internal relay failsafes designed to prevent a catastrophic overload in the Eezo core. Without the fail safes the relay would blow up, taking any ship in its vicinity with it”.

Finally my look of confusion turned to a full blown expression of loss, “Wait, so lets assume for now that this advanced colony exists, and lets just ignore the fact that the Mu relay might have been taken out just as the Sol Relay was, how do we get there without the other relays”. Tali interjected at that point “I can answer that, we execute an FTL jump”. I don’t know what was going on here, but every second those three were making less and less sense, my look of confusion now turned to Tali “FTL Jump?”. EDI spoke now “Yes Kaidan, Tali, Liara and I have been working continuously to modify our FTL drives, what we are hoping to achieve is a replicated process of what the relays do, but on a very small scale”. “Ok how do you suppose we do that”, I asked with a new look now, curiosity. Liara was the one who responded this time “while I was going through the Prothean archives, I uncovered an experiment they performed at the height of their advancement. The science is extremely complex, but they were able to modify their FTL core drives to allow them to generate the same mass effect field that the relays provide, except that instead of having a gate at the beginning and end of the corridor, we wait till it collapses and pushes out”. “So your idea is that we modify our FTL drive to create a space-time corridor similar to that of the relays, but instead of relying on the relays to pull us out, we wait and see where and if we will be thrown out”. Liara blinked several times before answering “Yes”, all I could think was “wow, I am surrounded by crazy people”, before I could say anything, Tali spoke up “Kaidan, I know this is risky, but my people have been experimenting with this technology for generations, we were hoping to forgo our dependence on the relays and start exploring the unknown parts of the galaxy for a suitable home”, she choked back a little, she didn’t need to say anything, but I knew that she was thinking of her people, whether they were alive or dead, whether they made is back to Rannoch. She shock her head and continued “The science is there Kaidan, if we can calculate accurately our trajectory and exit vector, we should make it to Ilos, or at least very near”. I looked at all three of them simultaneously, asking “Ok, tell me then, why didn’t any species implement this technology till now, better yet, why are we still dependent on the relays”. They all looked to each other, I couldn’t tell if they were puzzled by my question, or if they were hiding something, but EDI was the one who answered this question “because Kaidan, there is a 92.83% chance that the jump would deplete our Eezo supplies, not to mention a 79.4% chance that the core would be damaged beyond any chance of repair and an unspecified probability that the corridor might collapse while we are in it”. I finally saw the big picture now, “so you’re saying, that we possibly have one jump, and even if we didn’t die horribly before being ejected back to regular space, there is a large possibility that we would end up somewhere in dead space with no FTL capabilities and no power. How am I doing?”. EDI looked at me with her usual straight face, as if what she just said was a casual idea that should have its merits, “Yes” she said “provided that our corridor doesn’t pass through a blue star, a black hole or a quasar, or collapse while we are still in it, your assumptions are quite accurate”. Liara jumped, sensing that EDI’s logical approach to this dilemma may not be the best method to convince me, “Kaidan, I know its a huge risk, but we wouldn’t have thought of it if it wasn’t our only option. Shepard can’t remain in stasis forever, even as we speak, his body’s damage is increasing, and in a matter of weeks, maybe days even, it maybe too late to save him. This is our best option to provide him with the care he needs”, she looked away with a hint of desperation in her eyes, then looked back at me “look, either way the modification won’t be applicable till we shut down the core, we are on our way to meet the rest of the fleet, and should be there in 13 hours, think it over till then. In the meantime we will run our simulations and calculate the best route”. That plan sounded reasonable enough, I nodded to Liara as she and the others made their way out of the room. 

As I stared out of the window, I couldn’t help myself think about how Shepard would have handled this situation. He always took enormous risks, he went up against a reaper by himself, and look who came out standing, figuratively. But would he endanger people’s life for his own personal reasons, or for the well being of his soul mate, would he have ordered Liara, Tali, EDI, Joker and the rest of the crew to risk their lives if I was the one in Med bay. I did’t think he would ever do that, I did’t think he would be that selfish, but whats wrong with being a little selfish, we are not talking about any John Doe here, this is Shepard, this is the guy that put his life at risk to save the galaxy not once, not twice but three times, the guy that saved all of us from mass extinction, would it be selfish to try and save him for once. Looking at the time, I knew we had a little over 10 hours to reach the fleet, I realized that I hadn’t eaten a meal in several day, not through my mouth anyways, and I needed to freshen up, maybe even sleep, so I headed to the main cabin. 

After I grabbed a snack from the mess, I retired to the captain’s quarters. The last time I entered this room, I couldn’t help but feel how lonely it looked, how empty it felt, how the walls were closing in on me and trying to crush me for being there without Shepard. This time however, it was different, his scent in the room gave me hope, his hoodie on the bed, which I told him a thousand times to put back in the gear closet, gave me strength. I walked over to the desk that had the sunset picture of us on it, we both looked so, so care free, so in love, so unshackled. I picked the picture up, looked at his gorgeous smile, that smile that made me feel like a love stricken teenager again, the smile that can take away all my pain and all my sorrow in an instant, I looked at that smile and thought “what I would give to see this smile again”, before I put back the picture, I looked intently at us and said “I promise you Shepard, I promise I will bring you back, no matter the cost”. 

With that thought, I put down the picture and walked into the bathroom, its been days since I had a decent shower, and even with the most advanced biotic shielding, lets just say I needed a shower. As I took off my shirt and started to unzip my pants, I remembered the last shower I took here and pretended I was then and there. Knowing Shepard was behind me carefully checking me out, I slowly pulled my pants below my hips, then knees and finally feet, I then started playing with my brief’s waist line, looking behind me to see if he was still watching. Shepard was sitting on the desk outside the bathroom, looking at me with that luscious look he always had. The way John looked at me was different, I always had people look at my body, wanting it, lusting for it, but John’s gaze wasn’t that, I mean he still wanted it, but his gaze was full of desire and need. His gaze wasn’t the same as the ones I got from the one night standers, or even from Rahna, his gaze resembled the look people must have given the Monalisa back in the early 21st century, before it was destroyed, a look that only a Picasso art piece would have the luxury of getting, his look felt the same as what a Michelangelo masterpiece must have felt when it was put on display. This look was like opium to me, something if experienced once, you would want to experience it for the rest of your life.

As I pulled down my briefs and turned the water on, I started thinking about how turned on he would get right now if he was sitting outside on that desk, I turned to the desk, half hoping he might be there, just waiting patiently for me to start soaping up, but in vain. As I lathered my self, I started remembering all the different sexual encounters we had. In our relationship, John was always the more sexual partner, he was the one always coming up with things he wanted to do to me, or things he wanted to eat off me, or things he wanted to….you get the picture. He was never repressed, I, on the other hand, was a celibate monk by comparison, I rarely got the nerve to ask him what I wanted to do to him, or him to me, for crying out loud, I never once asked him to take me here and now, it was always him who initiated it. One time he decided to give me head while I was driving on the presidium’s main air way, another time he dared me to do it on the steps leading to the council’s hall, I cowered away naturally. I think the most exciting and daring time was when we did it in the CIC, that was back when we were on the SR-1. 

After Sovereigns fall, and during our endless missions in the expanse to search for the reason colonies went missing, Shepard and I finally had a chance to explore our relationship better, during that time, the Normandy’s crew was reduced to a skeletal crew, and most of them were usually either hanging around the mess or at the bay area. Shepard, being a unique commander, setup a sporting arena in the docking bay to allow the crew to vent a little. One night, as John was sitting in his quarters, reading mission reports or something, I walked in, thinking I was in a daring and romantic mood, and that I would surprise him with a wild night of passion on his bed, in the privacy of his quarters, of course, as always, he had to prove how naive I am. He was too focused on his readings that he didn’t even hear me come in, so I walked over behind him, and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, put my head next to his, and slowly whispered in his ears “what do you say commander, how about that wild night of passionate love making that you promised me?”, he put down the data pad as I gnawed on his ear lobe, he looked at me and said “are you serious Lt.”, I continued to play with his lobes, while slowly moving my hands down to his crotch and fondling his package, “oh yes, dead serious”. Without hesitation, he got up, put me over his shoulders and headed for the bed. 

As I prepared myself to be thrown on bed and savagely taken, Shepard decided otherwise, he grabbed the bed covers and headed for the door. As he stepped out, me on one shoulder, sheets on the other, I realized that something very bad was about to happen, I tried to dissuade him saying “Shepard, the bed is that way”, he lifted me higher up on his shoulders and said “Who needs a bed”, as we climbed up the stairs to the CIC, I knew something very very bad was going to happen, or should I say something Shepard was about to happen. While he was carrying me, his hands never stopped caressing my butt, slowly playing with each cheek, of course, I had my hands on his steel buns, pretending to be supporting myself if anyone saw us, but in fact I was cupping a feel. We reached the CIC, Shepard continued to walk to where the galaxy map was, went up the few steps and put me down. As he was laying the covers down, I looked at him and said “you must be crazy if you think I will do anything here, out in the open”, he looked back at me and said “I knew you wouldn’t go down easy, relax” he pressed something on his omni-tool and all the doors leading into the room were sealed. I asked him “What about Joker?”, he laughed a little and said “What, do you think Joker is glued to his chair 24 hours a day, he’s in his cabin, the ship’s on auto pilot”. He then touched something else on his omni-tool and the galaxy map expanded to encompass the whole room, there were stars all over the ceiling, walls, floors, apparently the Alliance created a small holo show for demonstration purposes. Then some music came in on the P.A., I freaked a little “are you crazy what if the other crew members heard it”, he looked back with a fed up look “Lt, drop your pants and sit your gorgeous ass down”, I gave it a final attempt, “Shepard, fine you want a crazy thing, lets do it in the comm room, at least we’ll have a door”. He looked up, sighed and looked back to me “if you don’t follow my order immediately, I will have you court martialed Lt”. I gave out a sigh of defeat and succumbed to his charms. 

I think he couldn’t wait any longer, he grabbed me, lifted me off my feet, and lowered me to the floor, kissing me all the way with this soft, yet strong, passionate kiss. I thought I was done then and there, but thankfully not for a while. As he continued to kiss me, he undid my pants as I undid his, he took them off quickly, interrupted the kiss just for a second to get everything out of the way, and to give me a chance to do so too, then continued this sensual tease. As his lips and tongue where sending erratic bursts of neuron energy all over my nerves, his hands were sending waves and waves of the same energy the other way. I never knew how this fierce soldier’s hands could handle an assault rifle and shotgun with such roughness, yet handle a delicate part of me with such tender and care. 

Sex with John was like the first time you ride a roller coaster, you get waves upon waves of excitement, building up till the point where the dopamine rushes out all over your body and abolishes this tower of emotions in a few seconds, or hopefully a few minutes. He never did the same thing twice, but each act was enough to send you to a plane higher than the one you were in before. That day, he started his medley at my perineum, a place rarely explored, but with the right code, has the ability to start a massive chain reaction that can culminate into a nuclear explosion. Slowly, tenderly, his beautiful, strong, defined fingers made their way up to my testicles, slowly tracing them, flirting with them, then tickling this small area along the bottom that would send a tsunami of feelings through. As he moved north with his fingers, I was in full Salute, his hands started moving up to take full control of my manhood, as his lips slowly made their way down to my neck, calmly opening the way to my nips. As his tongue began to nibble, his hands was somewhere along my shaft, tracing the vein till the edge, then falling off the other side. Then, with one finger, he slowly tickled my frenulum, dwarfing all previous sensations. Involuntarily, I laid my head back as my body arched upwards, desperate for more, craving it, wanting it, crying out in tormenting agony as my brain, nerves and whatever else in the way was overtaxed with this sensation. If he had continued doing this to me for a few extra seconds, I couldn’t have held my hounds in anymore. Luckily he stopped for a second, came up for a quick kiss, and then moved his mouth further south, kissing everything that met him along the way.

The first time John gave me head, I knew that all the previous acts I got and gave were nothing more than a flick in the shower. The way he balanced between internal and external techniques was uncanny, how he knew where to blow a soft and gentle breeze and where to give it a tight bite was enthralling. This balance of attention between each and every sense was what made it so euphoric; people think that touch is the only sense that matters during such moments, what they don’t realize is that everything counts, and John knew that. He always maintained eye contact, sending through this message “I have you in my hands, trust me and release all of you to me”. As he was doing that, he always made these very quiet sounds, I don’t even think he knew that he was making them, sounds of thirst, like he’s in a desert and I am the only drop of water he has. Finally, several times during the session, he slowly slid his hands upwards and gently caressed my lips, inside and out, massaging them in the most sensual way. Sometimes he licked his finger first before finding the way to my mouth, as making sure I remembered how he tasted like. 

After a thorough job of polishing me off, sucking almost the life out of me in the process and setting it free, I craved him so badly that I asked him to turn around so as to have access to his valuable assets. While I tried to perform a lousy job on his goods, he dropped his attention to my lower orifice, slowly massaging the hills and sliding his warm, moist tongue inside the valley till he reached the pit. Ripples of intense bliss rushed over me, my body always seemed to shake as he continued in perfect calmness. As I caressed his pride, and flirted with his soft spot, he seemed to be more concerned with me, whatever I tried, he never stopped for a second to absorb the shockwaves, or in my case, I guess, the tiny sparks. After what seemed like an eternity of delightfully sinful bliss, the first act came to an end and the second and main act was about to start, and John didn’t disappoint. In this day and age, people still like to protect themselves, whether with a biotic barrier, a shield emitter or whatever the latest science techs come up with next that is guaranteed to be safer than the previous. But John hated those things, he said that he wanted to feel everything I have to offer, he didn’t care about those new theories on illnesses, pathogens or even the effects of biotics on recreation, he just wanted the sensation. As I mentioned before, John always liked to have his partner face up, interlocking his eyes with theirs, and as he rides in, he syncs his rhythm with that of every heart beat. From a slow and deep tease, to a fast and rhythmic blow. As both our bodies evolved into this existence that sheds the needs of the flesh and tend only to those of the soul, as we left all our troubles below and ascended to the tip of the mountain of solitude, he rubbed my rod with one hand and reached for my hand with the other. As the final blast wave prepared to manifest itself through, as the tower of bliss reached its height, the barrier holding back all those sensations suddenly collapsed in a heavenly eruption of euphoric explosions. We both almost always let go together, highlighting the sensation that our two souls are no longer separate, but one. For the Encore, he always enjoyed cleaning me up, then as a final performance for an award-wining play, he landed another passionate kiss on my lips, signaling the end of an amazing and fulfilling emotional odyssey. 

As he ended the session that night, he sat next to me, exhausted from the performance he just gave, which was even more charged than the previous versions. He took me in his arms as we both watched the artificially lit CIC stars all around us. Hand in hand, we talked about the future, about what we both are looking for in life, what we planned to do next. We didn’t realize that we were there for hours till Joker’s voice came through the comm. “Eh, Commander, Should I come back later”. “Joker, were you listening in” Shepard said with a chuckle as my face and body turned to every shade of the color red. I jumped up quickly to get dressed as Joker replied “listening in on what Commander”, clearly playing dumb. “Fine gimme a second to find my damned….”, I shot Shepard a stern look of disapproval and yelled “Shepard”, Joker went on “hey Lt, hope you liked the light show”. God, I put my hands up to cover my face, as if they were a cloak of invisibility, “fine Joker, yeah I liked it”, both of them laughed out. As Shepard put on his pants, he reached for his omni-tool and unlocked the door. As Joker walked in, bringing with him all the shame I could carry in the world, I thought I was going to pass out from embarrassment. Of course, I was glad to see I was wrong, Joker wasn’t the only one coming into the CIC, about 6 techs and another 5 or so crew members walked in, giving us glances of encouragement, like they were cheering their crew mates in the sports arena. I commenced my very public walk of shame to the crew quarters as Shepard cheered them on. I looked back to him in anger and said “I hate you by the way”, he laughed back and said, loudly I might add, “and I love you too, sweetheart”. Two hours later the Normandy was attacked by the Collector Ship.

I looked up, I was still in the shower, holding the soap in my hand, completely motionless. I washed off, got out of the shower, dried myself and wore a pair of fresh boxers. As I made my way to the bed, I glanced at the photo of us on his desk, then at the aquarium, where I saw the fish he bought for me the last time we were on the Citadel, he said that it reminded him of me “White and tight”. I reached the bed and stood over his hoody for a few seconds, it was neatly laying there, as always, as if waiting for its owner to walk back in the next few seconds and put it on. I grabbed the hoody, brought it up to my nose as I inhaled every molecule, every atom of Shepard this hoody had. His scent spread a warm sensation through me like that of gentle sun rays in spring. I crawled up in bed, on Johns side, put his pillow under my head and brought his hoody up in my arms. As I prepared to sleep, I set the omni-tool to wake me when we reached the fleet, and I drifted off to this sweet, sweet place. 

I woke up to the shudder of the ship dropping out of FTL, as I opened my eyes, EDI’s voice came in through the comm “Major, Admiral Hackett would like to speak with immediately aboard the Kilimanjaro, and Liara would like a word before you head out”. I breathed out a sigh of desperation, I looked down, and in my hand was Shepard’s hoody. “Major, can you hear me”, I looked around a little before responding “Yes EDI, I hear you, have Liara meet me outside my quarters, and have Cortez prepare the shuttle for immediate launch”, “Yes Major”. I gathered whatever strength I had left as I walked to the closet and punched in my outfit code. As I walked out of my, our quarters, Liara was coming off the elevator, she looked at me and said “Kaidan, I want you to look at this”, handing me a data pad with loads of data on it. I skimmed it quickly before asking “Whats this”, “these are the simulation runs that EDI, Tali, Traynor and I have been running, we believe we could bring down the error rate to a fraction”, I sighed out a breath of exhaustion “Liara, I am not sure if this is a good idea. Maybe the fleet can help us..”, she interrupted me saying “Kaidan, I understand your hesitation, but now understand me. All 4 of us are confident that our calculations are accurate, and if you are worried about crew safety, EDI assures me that we can make the Jump with Joker on the helm, and only Traynor, Tali and me. Each one of us is willing to do this for Shepard”. It was hard to argue when your opponent is the shadow broker herself, I realized that I needed to get to the shuttle bay, so I looked at the data pad again and said “Walk with me”. I went over their simulations as we got into the elevator and, to my surprise, their numbers were adding up, I gave it another glance then said “How long will it take you to complete the necessary modifications”, I could see her eyes light up, “An hour or two tops”. As we reached the docking bay level, I looked deeply into her eyes, the sense of loss was in them, not the loss of a lover, but that of cherished friend, even a sibling. “Fine, you win, lets just hope Hackett goes for your idea”, she jumped in joy and hugged me, then she said “Ok Major, just remind the Admiral that if this drive is successful, we may not need to rebuild the relays”, “Yeah we’ll see”. I walked out feeling satisfied, even though technically I lost my argument, and the chances that Hackett would approve such an unconventional suicide test run in a time when ever ship was needed was close to non-existent, at least we had a plan to bring Shepard back, that in itself counts as a huge step forward. 

I walked into the shuttle to see Cortez already in place and preparing for take off, he spoke in the comm “How you doing Major”, “I am a little unnerved, Cortez, but generally fine, how about yourself”, Cortez winked back as he said “I am well, Major, Strap in, we are about to launch”. The shuttle whirred to life and jumped out of the docking bay. As soon as the inertial dampeners hit, I moved forward to the co pilot seat, I wanted to see what remained of the Alliance navy. The standing orders for all Alliance navy ships were to gather at the previous site of the Arcturus station, the previous home to humanity’s council and state. Many ships were still in FTL, but at least most surviving ships in this quarter of the galaxy were here, and it was a sight for sore eyes. Even though the massive eight fleet navy had been reduced to a few hundred frigates, some cruisers, and 2 dreadnoughts, the idea that they survived was empowering at the very least, humanity faced its mortality and came out victorious, with this fleet as a surplus. 

Making its way to the furthest Dreadnought, the Shuttle was passing by almost every ship in the surviving fleet, some were badly damaged, probably won’t survive for more than a few hours, some seemed in better condition, but all ships took one hell of a beating. Looking out at the Kilimanjaro ahead, I could see that the ship was heavily damaged, one side was almost torn off, and some of the cannons seemed to have been blasted, or ejected. We made our way to the docking bay of the ship, as the shuttle doors opened, I could see that many shuttles were brought in, most harboring survivors from other ships that could’t make it. After the shuttle landed, I made my way towards the deck elevator but was greeted with a most delightful sight, as the rear admiral made her way towards me, I stood in full salute, she looked at me with a pained expression and said “I am glad you made it out alive, Kaidan”, I looked in her eyes as they teared up, “and I am you did too, Admiral Shepard”.

Hannah Shepard was a woman that could inspire an army, she was a modern day Joan of Arc, the Amelia Earhart of the Alliance Navy. She was the first woman in Alliance history to command a Dreadnought, and, on top of all that, she was John’s mother. Seeing her, here and now, I couldn’t help but smile at the progress she’s made since I met her three years ago. She has truly beaten the odds of her disease and came out more determined than ever to be all she can be.

The first time I met Hannah was during the few weeks Shepard and I had after the failed attack of the Geth and Sovereign. The Normandy and the Kilimanjaro were docked at the Citadel, and Shepard thought it would be a nice idea to introduce me to Commodore Hannah Shepard, XO of the dreadnought Kilimanjaro. Up to this point I have heard stories about Hannah through the fleet, she was always compared to Athena, the greek goddess of strategy. Some of the stories included her piloting a carrier through an asteroid field to shake off a Batarian fleet, saving the entire crew in the process, others included her piloting Admiral Drescher’s flagship during the Shanxi operation, it’s said that her superior skills were one of the reasons the humans kicked the Turians’ figurative ass. Regardless of all that, I knew that I was about to meet a remarkable woman, after all, she did raise John. 

Shepard arranged for us to have lunch together at one of those boutique restaurants on the presidium, over looking the largest part of the lake. As we were heading for the restaurant, I couldn’t help but feel intimidated by the legend I was about to meet, I felt like a nobody, in the presence of an alliance hero, and the first human Spectre, it was an intimidating family indeed. Shepard and I arrived a few minutes early, and, as we took our seats, I couldn’t help but wonder what Hannah looked like, I imagined her as this tall, muscular woman with biceps and abs that would shame any alliance soldier. I envisioned her walking in with a stride that rivaled that of the amazonian war march. The shock I got when I saw her was unimaginable, Hannah was an ordinary looking woman by all means, well she clearly was a beautiful woman, but she didn’t have any trait that would make her a superior woman, in fact, if you saw her walking next to you, you would assume that she had a regular desk job, an executive maybe some where, never would you imagine that this woman is the XO of the most advanced dreadnought in alliance fleet. 

Hannah looked tired, while Shepard didn’t say anything about her to me, but, from her look, I could tell that she suffered from one of the many variations of Vrolik syndrome, probably a late onset, as my grand father did. Her walk was unbalanced and her skin and eyes were pale. Even though the disease had taken its toll on Hannah, it was clear that she was a beautiful woman, both in and out. She had classical Caucasian features, her skin was a little darker, like she had a perfect tan that weekend, she had long, black, wavy hair, a perfectly shaped face and a pair or sea blue eyes, her face was that of an African princess. It was obvious that John got several of his remarkable features from her, most noticeably her eyes. On the day we first met, she had her hair up, in compliance with alliance regulation even though we weren’t on duty, and she had on a lovely morning dress that complemented her slender figure nicely, her look was simple, yet elegant. 

Over the course of the meal, I think she sensed how nervous I was meeting her, but she was trying to be as open and friendly as possible. When John went to make a call, she told me that she had never seen her son this happy with anyone before, and that she is grateful he found someone like me. I couldn’t help but tell her how much this meant to me, and how much I was in love with John, even after only a couple of weeks. I later told her that she must be some sort of goddess, having the reputation she did on duty, and raising someone as amazing as John off duty. After Shepard returned, my tension eased a lot, I think even he noticed it. Although we only planned a quick lunch, we ended up spending the whole evening together, helping her pick some necessities from the markets, showing her around the wards, we even ended up having a drink at F.lux. At the end of the night, I could see how John became the person that he is, even if his father was not around, his mother was a great woman to be appreciated. 

After Shepard was presumed KIA by the collectors, I asked Admiral Hackett to pass on the news to his mother personally, I owed Hannah this much. At the time, Hannah’s illness had manifested itself in full form, recovery from that stage was extremely rare, less than 0.1% of patients recover at this point, so Hannah asked to return to earth and seek medical attention there. She checked herself in a facility that provided comfortable housing and superior medical attention, she was not expecting to check out again. I could never forget that day, I arrived to earth the night before to take care of this matter. The facility was a few miles south of San Francisco, close to Santa Cruz. As I drove there, I couldn’t imagine how I would deliver this to her, how can I tell her that the last of her children, the last member of her family was dead. Death was no stranger to Hannah, she had previously lost a husband, a son, and a daughter to the alliance, John was the only family she had. As I made my way to her house lot, I was beginning to have second thoughts, maybe an alliance navy member, that had no history with this woman would be better suited to tell her. I couldn’t get my self to do that to her, it had to be me. I got out of the car and started what seemed to be the longest walk of my life. I knocked on her door, a few seconds later she came out, looking as thin as ever, as pale as ever, as weak as ever. I think she immediately knew, because before I said anything, she covered her mouth and started crying profoundly. As I was giving her the standard speech alliance soldiers are required to give, she interrupted me with a hug of desperation, as she cried in my arms, I couldn’t help myself, my eyes started to tear up. She insisted that I come in, she said that she needed me to come in and tell her the details of how her son died. Usually family members don’t want to here about the excruciating last moments that their loved ones went through, but Hannah was an unusual woman. I went in, had a cup of coffee with her, told her about the collector ship, how her son’s brave actions saved many people that day, including me, how his death affected all he worked with, how all the crew members loved and cherished him. As her emotional state started to cool down, she looked at me and said “I want you to know that I am grateful my son died knowing what love is, and I owe it all to you, Kaidan”. It took a while to register her words, I looked at her and said “Ms. Shepard, I want you to know that your son wasn’t just my love, he was my whole being, my existence, he made me want to be a better person, he taught me how to love again”. As I was saying these words, my time for an overdue emotional breakdown had come, “I loved him so much, but I never told him, my last words to John were I hate you”, I put my head down between my hands as I cried out. Hannah stood up and left me, I didn’t understand why, I thought maybe she was getting some tissues, or giving me some privacy. She returned with a data pad in her hand, she handed it over to me, her eyes were tearing up when she said “Kaidan, I want you to read this”. I took the pad from here and started to read, apparently it was an email from John, sent a day before the attack, the email read:

“ Dear Mom,

Sorry I couldn’t get back to you sooner, finding a comm buoy in the traverse proved to be a challenge. 

I wanted to wish you a wonderful birthday if I can’t connect before then, I am sure you will have fun with your friends back on earth, but I still wish I could make it. I will talk with Anderson and the council to see if I can pass by earth for a few days soon. Save some of the celebration for when I come.

Kaidan is doing fine, he’s still adapting to opening up to someone else, but I know that he is trying and that is all I could ever ask of him. I never imagined I could love someone after Cheryl’s betrayal, never thought I could trust again, but Kaidan made it easy for me to fall for him, he is truly a wonderful human being and I count myself lucky that he chose me to love. I see a future here mom, I really think Kaidan’s the one I’ll be spending my life with. 

Please take care of yourself mom, and keep me informed of the disease progress, I’ve talked to Dr.s at Huerta memorial on the Citadel, they say that great advances are made each day when it comes to Vrolik, and the chances are you could make a full recovery if you took care of yourself. 

Anyways, I love you mom, and I hope I can see you soon.

With love, forever and for always,  
John” 

As I put the pad down, I couldn’t stop shaking, the words in this email were so full of hope, I knew that Shepard had feeling towards me, I just never knew how strong they were. I regretted never telling him how much I loved him, and it was too late then. I spent a few more hours in Hannah’s house, hearing stories about John, what he was as child, his greatest moments and his funniest. As I left her house, I told her that although I could never hope to be half the man that John was, I still wanted her to consider me a son, a son that was here for her and that will help her through her illness. She gave me a final hug as she whispered “I would be lucky to have a son like you, Kaidan”. Over the next few months, I took a leave from the alliance and relocated to earth to help Hannah out, at the very least care for her in her final moments. But she was truly a soldier, to everyone’s surprise, about 3 months later, Hannah beat her illness and was on her way to a full recovery. During her rehabilitation, I was recalled to active duty, so I arranged for her to move into my home in Vancouver, there she would be under my parents care and the change would really help her, reluctantly she agreed. Six months later, she returned to active duty.

Her fingers softly drying my tears were what brought me back to the present, aboard the Kilimanjaro. She looked at me with her blue eyes, the same eyes that her son had, and said with a hint of a smile “How are you holding up”, I smiled back and said “he’s alive, thats all that matters”, her smile came out as she hugged me again. Leading the way to the elevator, Hannah told me about the battle the Kilimanjaro faced back in earth’s orbit, how the ship was almost lost if it wasn’t for the crucible’s intervention, how they lost all primary weapons, and managed to fix the FTL just in time to avoid the main blast wave. As I looked around, all I could see was cables hanging down from the ceiling, and gas pipes venting everywhere. It took a great ship to make it out here in this condition, and an even greater captain to pilot this ship. As we waited for the elevator, Hannah was kind enough to explain what Hackett wanted to talk to me about, basically he was looking for the Normandy’s FTL capabilities to transport people safely back to the Sol system, and then maybe have the Ship do some reconnaissance, find out what happened to the rest of the galaxy and why they all went silent. I nodded silently as I thought of ways to convince Hackett of Liara’s plan. How can I tell him, I need to utilize the Normandy’s resources to perform an untested, unsafe and unwise maneuver that could end up throwing us across the galaxy in a matter of seconds, if it didn’t kill us in the process. 

As the Elevator door opened on the Kilimanjaro’s war deck, I couldn’t help but feel humbled by the scale of this room, it was huge, tall ceilings with glass windows covering one side of the room, and screen panels covering the other. It was a busy room, with technicians working on multiple computers and screaming in their comm system, towards the middle of the room, rose a large table that proved to be the main strategy console, from this device, the admirals could direct the fleet’s attack, and coordinate all war efforts. The console was built with one purpose in mind, provide the admiralty board with the most sophisticated and accurate real time monitoring technology that can allow them to assess the situation and adapt accordingly. It was rooms like this that proved how advanced the human’s military capabilities were, and provided us with the military superiority we were quickly achieving throughout the galaxy. 

Admiral Hackett was standing near the edge of the war console, discussing some issues with one of the navigators when he spotted me, he waved over for me to join him, Hannah and I heeded his call. As I was closing, I heard him saying to his aid “tell the captain of the Irtysh, we have no choice, the Atlanta is venting atmosphere and people on board have no where to go”. He dismissed the guy and focused his attention on me, with an extended hand he said “Major, nice to have you back, come lets have a chat”. He lead the way to one of the private meeting rooms on the side of the hall, the room had a large window that looked over the entire surviving navy, you could see almost every ship from here, even the Normandy. 

Hackett, Hannah and I sat down, then Hackett began “Major, hows the Normandy doing”, I looked out the window, scanning to find the ship that single handedly was responsible for ending the reaper threat. As I spotted it over the horizon I said “Its in better shape than expected Admiral, weapons are damaged, and power generation has been severely impaired, but we have FTL, sub-light and life support. We should be able to fix the rest soon”. It seemed the news delighted him, he looked to the ceiling, gave it a few minutes of deep thinking then came back, “And hows the commander”. My facial impressions immediately turned to despair “not good sir, his life is being preserved by a stasis field and medical equipment. According to Dr. Chackawas, he has burns over 80% of his body and multiple injuries to his internal organs”. I could see from the corner of my eyes Hannah turning her head away to hide her despair, I assumed she was tearing up. Hackett nodded “The Dr. Informed me that, as far as we know, the facilities that had the level of medical technology that could bring back the Commander have been wiped out”, he paused a moment to let it sink “she even mentioned that the only facilities that may be still there are ones in remote systems”. I shook my head as I waited to see where the Admiral’s train of thought was heading. “Major, I know you want to exhaust every option to save the Commander, but really what options do we have. More importantly, our fleet is spread thin at the moment and we need ships to take in the refugees”. As I looked out the window at the surviving fleet, I contemplated whether I should mention Liara’s plan or not, risking the Normandy, a functional ship to save the life of 1 person, was it worth it. I knew it would take a lot to convince the Admiral.

Hackett was waiting for my response, he nudged “Major, your thoughts”. I looked at him, carefully studying his expressions, then said “Admiral, we have a plan that might save Shepard, even improve our chances of survival out here”. The Admiral’s expression changed from neutral to surprise, “What do you have Major” he said. I weighed every word carefully, this was it, it was now or never. “Sir, as you know Liara has assumed the role of the Shadow broker for some time now”, I honestly wasn’t aware if he knew this piece of information, it seemed that he did, so I went on “After seeing the destruction brought by Sovereign, she used all her available resources to create isolated, hidden colonies; places to preserve the galactic culture for the next cycle”, I sensed I was gaining his attention even more, “Being the shadow broker, Liara was able to create and maintain a remote base on Ilos, one that she claims has all the technological advances of the modern day galactic community, but was isolated enough so as not to attract the reapers’ attention. She says that this base has everything needed to survive, defensive weapons, communication relays and most importantly, advanced medical facilities”, as I looked to the admiral, I could see him trying to fit this information in context, he had one hand stroking his chin, while the other tapping on the chair, clearly he was a little rattled by the news, he looked back at me and said “Major, Ilos is decades away by FTL, even if I let you go, there is no guarantee the base will be there, not to mention that the path to Ilos is one of the most dangerous paths in this galaxy”. I immediately jumped in “Admiral, Liara says that she is confident the base is still there, she said that the reapers’ could never find Ilos because of its remote location, also, as a precaution, she rigged the Mu Relay to explode should any ship try to pass through without proper authentication”, I didn’t give him time to interject as I continued on “as for how to get there, Liara, EDI, Tali and Officer Traynor have been working on a new patch that would allow the FTL core drive to act as a relay, it will open a space time corridor for us that, with careful calculations, can allow the Normandy to Jump to Ilos in a matter of seconds”. I took out the data pad Liara gave me before I left, as I gave it to him I said “as you can see sir, the simulations that they ran shows that we could make the jump with relative ease”. He looked at the data, then at me, “Major, this says that you could be crushed should the corridor collapse, it also says that there is a chance you would come out the other side in a completely uninhabited zone with no power and no FTL capabilities, this is a suicide run Major, and I don’t think I can accept that”. I held back my nerves as I proceeded to explain “Sir, I understand your concern, but the fact is that this is no more dangerous than regular FTL travel, with EDI’s calculations, I am certain that our odds would be optimized. Furthermore sir, with the base capabilities that Liara mentioned, we could relay the flight test results to the fleet with our recommended modification, Ships currently traveling in FTL, hoping to make it back to Arcturus or Sol within a few months would have the capabilities to make the jump in seconds”, Hackett was really tough to read at this point, I wasn’t sure if he was truly weighing the options, or just giving me a chance to finish, my answer came in his next sentence “Major, commandeering a ship to this reckless chance at a time of need would be a foolish act”, my heart sank to the bottom, I was waiting for his rejection next, “But, as Commander Shepard has proven to me many times, foolish acts are what bring us hope”, I looked up at the Admiral, not believing what he was saying, was he really going to give us a chance to go through with this insane plan, apparently he was, “Major, the Normandy is authorized to commence a first flight test on this new FTL Jump core, Permission granted”, I was speechless, I can’t believe he went for it, he added “Have non essential personnel transport to the Chakti”, it seemed we were really going to go through with this, “but Major, should you succeed, I expect those specs sent to the fleet immediately, and have EDI forward me all the relevant data, I will have fleet scientists take a look at these simulations, good luck Major, and godspeed”. 

For the second time, Hackett proved to me that he was not a typical Alliance brass, he didn’t follow the conventional wisdom of all the Admirals that came before him, he proved to me today what a visionary he was. As I saluted him, I couldn’t keep the smile of my face, a smile that was also noticeable on Hannah’s face, she knew her son finally had a chance. She walked with me to the elevator, and as we got in, she looked at me and said “Kaidan, I want to go with you, I want to be there with him”, I held her in my hands and looked her in the eye, then said “Hannah, you belong here, the admiral needs you and so does the fleet. I promise I will keep you posted if we made it, and I promise you, the moment Shepard is up, I will have him contact you”, she teared up a little as she gave me a hug, then she said “ok, you’re right, but Kaidan, please take care of him, and please keep me posted. I will wait for a message as soon as those comm relays are active”. “I promise Hannah” were my last words, I gave her a kiss goodbye on the cheek and headed for the shuttle, even though I knew that Hannah was not my real mother, I still felt her maternal love as I was leaving.

Cortez took no time getting us back to the Normandy. As I stepped off the shuttle, Liara and EDI were waiting for me, the anticipation was wearing Liara down, while EDI looked like she was standing in a space port waiting for her ride. Liara couldn’t handle it anymore, “So, what did he say, do we have a go”, I gave her a sigh, signaling defeat, then looked in her eyes “We have a go”. She jumped up into the air and yelled “YES”, EDI on the other hand was calm as ever, “Wow, EDI, calm down girl, you might burn out a circuit”, she ignored my comment. I looked at Liara and said “ok, give me an update, how are the modification going”, she got out a data pad and gave it to me, from what I could see, the modifications were almost complete, a half hour at the most and the ship would be ready for its FTL maiden Jump. “Ok this looks great, EDI, have all non essential personnel transported to the Chakti immediately, and have all relevant information regarding the Jump simulation sent to the Admiral before we jump, Hackett gave us his blessing only because he is hoping this drive of yours would be successful”. EDI looked busy for a few seconds, then said “Data sent, personnel will be evacuated in the next 45 minutes”. I looked at Liara with hope and said “ok, lets do this” then touching my comm “Joker, give me a T-1 hour”.

As EDI was moving the crew to the other ship, and Liara, Tali and Traynor were doing a final run on the drive modifications and route calculations, I decided to take a few seconds to myself in Shepard’s quarters. Sitting on the bed, holding his hoodie in one hand, and his picture in the other, I found myself whispering to him “Ok John, this is it, its now or never. Before we do this, I just wanted you to know that I don’t just love you, I adore you, I cherish you, and I miss you, and I hope you know that my life wouldn't have been the same without you. Ok commander, lets get you back”. 

Before I could finish my thought, EDI’s voice came through the comm “Commander, please report to the Med bay immediately”, I rushed up, thinking the worst has happened, Shepard was gone. As the elevator doors opened on the Crew deck, I rushed out and headed towards the Med bay, running in, ignoring EDI and Karen, I headed for Shepard’s bed, out of breath, I said “is he ok, is he alright, what happened”. Karen chuckled a little and said “Major he’s fine, I was trying to tell EDI here that I will not leave this ship while Shepard is in my Med Bay”, EDI looked at Karen then said “Major, I was explaining to the Dr., the orders stated that all non essential personnel must leave the ship, I fail to see how the Dr. would be considered essential in a test run”. I stood up from the side of Shepard’s bed and looked at both of them, “What” I said, both proceeded to explain the situation at the same time, “EDI, the Dr. can stay”, Karen looked at me and said “thank you Major”.

The last few minutes before the jump were extremely hectic, as the last shuttle departed, EDI proceeded to the Engineering deck to make sure all systems were a go, because of the expected radiation from the core, only EDI could remain there. Liara was at one of the navigator consoles, Tali was at another, Traynor was at the galaxy map, and I was next to Joker. As the countdown raced to the final seconds, the ship’s core started charging up, severe vibrations rippled through the ship. As the clock read 5 seconds, I could hear several loud bangs coming from the hull, the ship was being teared apart from the inside out. EDI’s voice came through the comm “4…3…2…1…executing jump”. For a few milliseconds, the glass panes on the side of the Flight deck had these weird blue, flame like hues on its outside, then suddenly, a force like nothing before took over as the Normandy disappeared from the Arcturus system in a bright flash.

**Author's Note:**

> To Be Continued......... Part II: Recovery


End file.
